Hi Michelle,
Well, you really got me started! I just love her poems. I downloaded a .pdf of 270 of them from her page on http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-law/
Can I just share these 2 with you. Hope you don't mind, but I think her work is amazing and just wanted to show you.
For example, this poem.
Verse 1 My thoughts ....
Verse 2 My purpose ...
Verse 3 My Life ...
Verse 4 My heart ...
Fleeing Away
My thoughts soar not as they ought to soar,
Higher and higher on soul-lent wings;
But ever and often and more and more
They are dragged down earthward by little things,
By little troubles and little needs,
As a lark might be tangled among the weeds.
My purpose is not what it ought to be,
Steady and fixed, like a star on high,
But more like a fisherman's light at sea;
HIther and thither it seems to fly --
Sometimes feeble, and sometimes bright,
Then suddenly lost in the gloom of night.
My life is far from my dream of life --
Calmly contented, serenely glad;
But, vexed and worried by daily strife,
It is always troubled and ofttimes sad --
And the heights I had thought I should reach one day
Grow dimmer and dimmer, and farther away.
My heart never finds the longed-for rest;
Its worldly striving, its greed for gold,
Chilled and frightened the calm-eyed guest
Who sometimes sought me in days of old;
And ever fleeing away from me
Is the higher self that I long to be
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1850 -1919
And being a great animal campaigner and my signature at Yuku (which I don't use often) is A Voice for The Voiceless.
I couldn't believe it when I found this poem among her collection ..... !
Voice of the Voiceless
I am the Voice of the Voiceless
Through me the dumb shall speak
Till the world's deaf ear be made to hear
The wrongs of the wordless weak.
Oh shame on the mothers of mortals
Who do not stoop to teach
The sorrow that lies in dear dumb eyes
The sorrow that has no speech.
From street, from cage, from kennel
From stable and from zoo
The wall of my tortured kin proclaims the sin
Of the mighty against the grail.
But I am my brother's keeper
And I shall fight their fight
And speak the word for beast and bird
Till the world shall set things right.
Emma Wheeler Wilcom 1850 - 1919
I'll leave you in peace now ..... :
lol Hugs jilly
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
The Law by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The Law (The sun may be clouded, yet ever the sun...)
By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The sun may be clouded, yet ever the sun
Will sweep on its course till the cycle is run.
And when into chaos the systems are hurled,
Again shall the Builder reshape a new world.
Your path may be clouded, uncertain your goal;
Move on, for the orbit is fixed for your soul.
And though it may lead into darkness of night,
The torch of the Builder shall give it new light.
You were, and you will be: know this while you are.
Your spirit has travelled both long and afar.
It came from the Source, to the Source it returns;
The spark that was lighted, eternally burns.
It slept in the jewel, it leaped in the wave,
It roamed in the forest, it rose in the grave,
It took on strange garbs for long aeons of years,
And now in the soul of yourself it appears.
From body to body your spirit speeds on;
It seeks a new form when the old one is gone;
And the form that it finds is the fabric you wrought
On the loom of the mind, with the fibre of thought.
As dew is drawn upward, in rain to descend,
Your thoughts drift away and in destiny blend.
You cannot escape them; or petty, or great,
Or evil, or noble, they fashion your fate.
Somewhere on some planet, sometime and somehow,
Your life will reflect all the thoughts of your now.
The law is unerring; no blood can atone;
The structure you rear you must live in alone.
From cycle to cycle, through time and through space,
Your lives with your longings will ever keep pace.
And all that you ask for, and all you desire,
Must come at your bidding, as flames out of fire.
Once list to that voice and all tumult is done,
Your life is the life of the Infinite One;
In the hurrying race you are conscious of pause,
With love for the purpose and love for the cause.
You are your own devil, you are your own God,
You fashioned the paths that your footsteps have trod;
And no one can save you from error or sin,
Until you shall hark to the Spirit within.
Source Book
Poems of Sentiment
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Copyright 1911
Published by Gay And Hancock, Ltd., London
http://ellawheelerwilcox.wwwhubs.com/
By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The sun may be clouded, yet ever the sun
Will sweep on its course till the cycle is run.
And when into chaos the systems are hurled,
Again shall the Builder reshape a new world.
Your path may be clouded, uncertain your goal;
Move on, for the orbit is fixed for your soul.
And though it may lead into darkness of night,
The torch of the Builder shall give it new light.
You were, and you will be: know this while you are.
Your spirit has travelled both long and afar.
It came from the Source, to the Source it returns;
The spark that was lighted, eternally burns.
It slept in the jewel, it leaped in the wave,
It roamed in the forest, it rose in the grave,
It took on strange garbs for long aeons of years,
And now in the soul of yourself it appears.
From body to body your spirit speeds on;
It seeks a new form when the old one is gone;
And the form that it finds is the fabric you wrought
On the loom of the mind, with the fibre of thought.
As dew is drawn upward, in rain to descend,
Your thoughts drift away and in destiny blend.
You cannot escape them; or petty, or great,
Or evil, or noble, they fashion your fate.
Somewhere on some planet, sometime and somehow,
Your life will reflect all the thoughts of your now.
The law is unerring; no blood can atone;
The structure you rear you must live in alone.
From cycle to cycle, through time and through space,
Your lives with your longings will ever keep pace.
And all that you ask for, and all you desire,
Must come at your bidding, as flames out of fire.
Once list to that voice and all tumult is done,
Your life is the life of the Infinite One;
In the hurrying race you are conscious of pause,
With love for the purpose and love for the cause.
You are your own devil, you are your own God,
You fashioned the paths that your footsteps have trod;
And no one can save you from error or sin,
Until you shall hark to the Spirit within.
Source Book
Poems of Sentiment
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Copyright 1911
Published by Gay And Hancock, Ltd., London
http://ellawheelerwilcox.wwwhubs.com/
Saturday, June 28, 2008
King Arthur and the Witch
Shamelessly swiped from another group :)
King Arthur and the Witch:
Young King Arthur was ambushed and imprisoned by the monarch of a neighbouring kingdom. The monarch could have killed him but was moved by Arthur's youth and ideals. So, the monarch offered him his freedom, as long as he could answer a very difficult question. Arthur would have a year to figure out the answer and, if after a year, he still had no answer, he would be put to death.
The question?... .What do women really want? Such a question would perplex even the most knowledgeable man, and to young Arthur, it seemed an impossible query. But, since it was better than death, he accepted the monarch's proposition to have an answer by year's end.
He returned to his kingdom and asked everyone: the princess, the priests, the wise men and even the court jester. He spoke with everyone, but no one could give him a satisfactory answer. Many people advised him to consult the old witch, for only she would have the answer. But the price would be high; as the witch was famous throughout the kingdom for the exorbitant prices she charged.
The last day of the year arrived and Arthur had no choice but to talk to the witch. She agreed to answer the question, but he would have to agree to her price first. The old witch wanted to marry Sir Lancelot, the most noble of the Knights of the Round Table and Arthur's closest friend!
Young Arthur was horrified. She was hunchbacked and hideous, had only one tooth, smelled like sewage, made obscene noises, etc. He had never encountered such a repugnant creature in all his life. He refused to force his friend to marry her and endure such a terrible burden; but Lancelot, learning of the proposal, spoke with Arthur. He said nothing was too big of a sacrifice compared to Arthur's life and the preservation of the Round Table. Hence, a wedding was proclaimed and the witch answered Arthur's question thus:
What a woman really wants, she answered.... is to be in charge of her own life.
Everyone in the kingdom instantly knew that the witch had uttered a great truth and that Arthur's life would be spared.And so it was, the neighbouring monarch granted Arthur his freedom and Lancelot and the witch had a wonderful wedding.
The honeymoon hour approached and Lancelot, steeling himself for a horrific experience, entered the bedroom. But, what a sight awaited him. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen lay before him on the bed. The astounded Lancelot asked what had happened.The beauty replied that since he had been so kind to her when she appeared as a witch, she would henceforth, be her horrible deformed self only half the time and the beautiful maiden the other half. Which would he prefer? Beautiful during the day....or night?
Lancelot pondered the predicament. During the day, a beautiful woman to show off to his friends, but at night, in the privacy of his castle, an old witch? Or, would he prefer having a hideous witch during the day, but by night, a beautiful woman for him to enjoy wondrous intimate moments?
What would YOU do?
What Lancelot chose is below. BUT....make YOUR choice before you scroll down below.
OKAY?
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Noble Lancelot said that he would allow HER to make the choice herself.
Upon hearing this, she announced that she would be beautiful all the time because he had respected her enough to let her be in charge of her own life.
Now....what is the moral to this story?
Scroll down
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
The moral is.....If you don't let a woman have her own way....Things are going to get ugly
King Arthur and the Witch:
Young King Arthur was ambushed and imprisoned by the monarch of a neighbouring kingdom. The monarch could have killed him but was moved by Arthur's youth and ideals. So, the monarch offered him his freedom, as long as he could answer a very difficult question. Arthur would have a year to figure out the answer and, if after a year, he still had no answer, he would be put to death.
The question?... .What do women really want? Such a question would perplex even the most knowledgeable man, and to young Arthur, it seemed an impossible query. But, since it was better than death, he accepted the monarch's proposition to have an answer by year's end.
He returned to his kingdom and asked everyone: the princess, the priests, the wise men and even the court jester. He spoke with everyone, but no one could give him a satisfactory answer. Many people advised him to consult the old witch, for only she would have the answer. But the price would be high; as the witch was famous throughout the kingdom for the exorbitant prices she charged.
The last day of the year arrived and Arthur had no choice but to talk to the witch. She agreed to answer the question, but he would have to agree to her price first. The old witch wanted to marry Sir Lancelot, the most noble of the Knights of the Round Table and Arthur's closest friend!
Young Arthur was horrified. She was hunchbacked and hideous, had only one tooth, smelled like sewage, made obscene noises, etc. He had never encountered such a repugnant creature in all his life. He refused to force his friend to marry her and endure such a terrible burden; but Lancelot, learning of the proposal, spoke with Arthur. He said nothing was too big of a sacrifice compared to Arthur's life and the preservation of the Round Table. Hence, a wedding was proclaimed and the witch answered Arthur's question thus:
What a woman really wants, she answered.... is to be in charge of her own life.
Everyone in the kingdom instantly knew that the witch had uttered a great truth and that Arthur's life would be spared.And so it was, the neighbouring monarch granted Arthur his freedom and Lancelot and the witch had a wonderful wedding.
The honeymoon hour approached and Lancelot, steeling himself for a horrific experience, entered the bedroom. But, what a sight awaited him. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen lay before him on the bed. The astounded Lancelot asked what had happened.The beauty replied that since he had been so kind to her when she appeared as a witch, she would henceforth, be her horrible deformed self only half the time and the beautiful maiden the other half. Which would he prefer? Beautiful during the day....or night?
Lancelot pondered the predicament. During the day, a beautiful woman to show off to his friends, but at night, in the privacy of his castle, an old witch? Or, would he prefer having a hideous witch during the day, but by night, a beautiful woman for him to enjoy wondrous intimate moments?
What would YOU do?
What Lancelot chose is below. BUT....make YOUR choice before you scroll down below.
OKAY?
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Noble Lancelot said that he would allow HER to make the choice herself.
Upon hearing this, she announced that she would be beautiful all the time because he had respected her enough to let her be in charge of her own life.
Now....what is the moral to this story?
Scroll down
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
The moral is.....If you don't let a woman have her own way....Things are going to get ugly
Friday, June 27, 2008
Shakespearian Insult Kit
Shakespearian Insult Kit
Next time that you are at a loss for a good insult, use this handy table to construct a Shakespearean insult.
Combine one word from each of the three columns below, and be sure to preface it with the word "Thou":
/Column_1/Columm_2/Column_3/
artless/ base-court /apple-john
bawdy/ bat-fowling /baggage
beslubbering /beef-witted /barnacle
bootless/ beetle-headed/ bladder
churlish/ boil-brained /boar-pig
cockered/ clapper-clawed /bugbear
clouted /clay-brained /bum-bailey
craven /common-kissing/ canker-blossom
currish/ crook-pated/ clack-dish
dankish /dismal-dreaming /clotpole
dissembling/ dizzy-eyed /coxcomb
droning /doghearted /codpiece
errant /dread-bolted /death-token
fawning/ earth-vexing /dewberry
fobbing /elf-skinned /flap-dragon
froward /fat-kidneyed /flax-wench
frothy /fen-sucked /flirt-gill
gleeking/ flap-mouthed /foot-licker
goatish /fly-bitten /fustilarian
gorbellied /folly-fallen /giglet
impertinent/ fool-born/ gudgeon
infectious/ full-gorged /haggard
jarring /guts-griping/ harpy
loggerheaded /half-faced/ hedge-pig
lumpish /hasty-witted /horn-beast
mammering /hedge-born /hugger-mugger
mangled/ hell-hated/ joithead
mewling /idle-headed /lewdster
paunchy /ill-breeding/ lout
pribbling /ill-nurtured /maggot-pie
puking /knotty-pated /malt-worm
puny /milk-livered/ mammet
qualling/ motley-minded /measle
rank /onion-eyed /minnow
reeky /plume-plucked/ miscreant
roguish /pottle-deep /moldwarp
ruttish/ pox-marked/ mumble-news
saucy/ reeling-ripe /nut-hook
spleeny/ rough-hewn /pigeon-egg
spongy /rude-growing /pignut
surly /rump-fed /puttock
tottering/ shard-borne/ pumpion
unmuzzled /sheep-biting/ ratsbane
vain/ spur-galled/ scut
venomed/ swag-bellied/ skainsmate
villainous/ tardy-gaited /strumpet
warped /tickle-brained /varlet
wayward/ toad-spotted /vassal
weedy /unchin-snouted /whey-face
yeasty/ weather-bitten/ wagtail
__________________________
Next time that you are at a loss for a good insult, use this handy table to construct a Shakespearean insult.
Combine one word from each of the three columns below, and be sure to preface it with the word "Thou":
/Column_1/Columm_2/Column_3/
artless/ base-court /apple-john
bawdy/ bat-fowling /baggage
beslubbering /beef-witted /barnacle
bootless/ beetle-headed/ bladder
churlish/ boil-brained /boar-pig
cockered/ clapper-clawed /bugbear
clouted /clay-brained /bum-bailey
craven /common-kissing/ canker-blossom
currish/ crook-pated/ clack-dish
dankish /dismal-dreaming /clotpole
dissembling/ dizzy-eyed /coxcomb
droning /doghearted /codpiece
errant /dread-bolted /death-token
fawning/ earth-vexing /dewberry
fobbing /elf-skinned /flap-dragon
froward /fat-kidneyed /flax-wench
frothy /fen-sucked /flirt-gill
gleeking/ flap-mouthed /foot-licker
goatish /fly-bitten /fustilarian
gorbellied /folly-fallen /giglet
impertinent/ fool-born/ gudgeon
infectious/ full-gorged /haggard
jarring /guts-griping/ harpy
loggerheaded /half-faced/ hedge-pig
lumpish /hasty-witted /horn-beast
mammering /hedge-born /hugger-mugger
mangled/ hell-hated/ joithead
mewling /idle-headed /lewdster
paunchy /ill-breeding/ lout
pribbling /ill-nurtured /maggot-pie
puking /knotty-pated /malt-worm
puny /milk-livered/ mammet
qualling/ motley-minded /measle
rank /onion-eyed /minnow
reeky /plume-plucked/ miscreant
roguish /pottle-deep /moldwarp
ruttish/ pox-marked/ mumble-news
saucy/ reeling-ripe /nut-hook
spleeny/ rough-hewn /pigeon-egg
spongy /rude-growing /pignut
surly /rump-fed /puttock
tottering/ shard-borne/ pumpion
unmuzzled /sheep-biting/ ratsbane
vain/ spur-galled/ scut
venomed/ swag-bellied/ skainsmate
villainous/ tardy-gaited /strumpet
warped /tickle-brained /varlet
wayward/ toad-spotted /vassal
weedy /unchin-snouted /whey-face
yeasty/ weather-bitten/ wagtail
__________________________
Quote
When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment.
~Georgia O'Keeffe
~Georgia O'Keeffe
Another book I want
Gail Carson Levine: Writing Magic, Creating Stories That Fly
*****************************************************
Jamie Oliver: Cook With Jamie, My Guide to Making You a Better Cook
***************************************************************
Raphael Patai: The Hebrew Goddess
Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1990, 0-8143-2221-2
A wonderful book that speaks of Hebrew Goddesses including: Asherah, Anat, Matronit, Lilith, Shabbat, and the Shekhina
***********************************************************************************
Savina J. Teubal: Sarah the Priestess: The First Matriarch of Genesis, Swallow Press, 0804008442
The matriarch Sarah as a priestess of high ranking preserving goddess ways and feminine wisdom in the face of a patriarchal paradigm shift. Abraham and Sarah's spiritual life makes much more sense after reading and examining some of these theories. Empowering and enlightening.
*********************************************************************************
Jenny Kien: Reinstating the Divine Woman in Judaism
Great book which focusses on Asherah and G-ddess Judaism
*****************************************************
Susan Wittig Albert: China Bayle's Book of Days
And
An Untimely Death and Other Gardening Mysteries: A Treasury of Stories, Herbal Lore, Recipes and Crafts
***************************************************
Dicey Deere: The Irish Cairn Murder
***************************************************
____________
*****************************************************
Jamie Oliver: Cook With Jamie, My Guide to Making You a Better Cook
***************************************************************
Raphael Patai: The Hebrew Goddess
Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1990, 0-8143-2221-2
A wonderful book that speaks of Hebrew Goddesses including: Asherah, Anat, Matronit, Lilith, Shabbat, and the Shekhina
***********************************************************************************
Savina J. Teubal: Sarah the Priestess: The First Matriarch of Genesis, Swallow Press, 0804008442
The matriarch Sarah as a priestess of high ranking preserving goddess ways and feminine wisdom in the face of a patriarchal paradigm shift. Abraham and Sarah's spiritual life makes much more sense after reading and examining some of these theories. Empowering and enlightening.
*********************************************************************************
Jenny Kien: Reinstating the Divine Woman in Judaism
Great book which focusses on Asherah and G-ddess Judaism
*****************************************************
Susan Wittig Albert: China Bayle's Book of Days
And
An Untimely Death and Other Gardening Mysteries: A Treasury of Stories, Herbal Lore, Recipes and Crafts
***************************************************
Dicey Deere: The Irish Cairn Murder
***************************************************
____________
Barron, Stephanie: A Flaw in the Blood
Book Cover Excerpt:
The acclaimed author of the bestselling Jane Austen mysteries brings rich historical immediacy to an enthralling new suspense novel centered around Queen Victoria's troubled court...and a secret so dangerous, it could topple thrones.
Windsor Castle, 1861. For the second time in over twenty years, Irish barrister Patrick Fitzgerald has been summoned by the Queen. The first time, he'd been a zealous young legal clerk, investigating what appeared to be a muderous conspiracy against her. Now he is a distinguished gentleman at the top of his profession. And the Queen is a woman in the grip of fear. For on this chilly night, her beloved husband, Prince Albert, lies dying.
With her future clouded by grief, Fitzgerald can't help but notice the Queen is curiously preoccupied with the past. Yet why, and how he can help, is unclear. His bewilderment deepens when the royal coach is violently overturned, nearly killing him and his brilliant young ward, Dr. Georgiana Armistead, niece of the late Dr. Snow, a famed physician who'd attended none other than Her Majesty.
Fitzgerald is sure of one thing: the Queen's carriage was not attacked at random--it was a carefully chosen target. But was it because he rode in it? Fitzgerald won't risk dying in order to find out. He'll leave London and take Georgiana with him---if they can get out alive. For soon the pair find themselves hunted. Little do they know they each carry within their past hidden clues to a devastating royal secret...one they must untangle if they are to survive.
From the streets of London to the lush hills of Cannes, from the slums of St. Giles to the gilded halls of Windsor Castle, A Flaw in the Blood delivers a fascinating tale of pursuit, and the artful blend of period detail and electrifying intrigue that only the remarkable Stephanie Barron can devise.
I enjoyed this book, despite it being a "Queen Victoria" novel, LOL... I don't know, some topics I just avoid...if it were non-fiction, wouldn't be a problem, but sometimes fiction involving real people kinda irk me. There were points that did that for me in this book, but the "chase" kept me involved. I kinda hope that this turns into a series for the characters of Patrick Fitzgerald and Georgiana Armistead. Especially as they head to new destinations.
This novel touches on the royal families hemophilia and the possibilities of its origin. Ms. Barron has made Victoria a less than likable character...But I don't know that much of the Victorian reign, so don't know one way or another...
I do recommend this book, it is a good read, not as "easy" a read as some others I recommend, but definitely worth the time. And it did peak my curiosity to look up a few things. Especially pertaining to the Queen's attitude towards the Irish. And the English view of them in general. And you get the prevalent attitude thru the perspective of Fitzgerald, himself and Irishman. The slurs and disdain, and outright violence, aimed at him only due to his "race". Even his own son is disgusted by his heritage, and lets him (Fitzgerald) know it.
I never did figure out if the Queen was complicit in any of the deeds in this book...but that could just be my own overlook, someone else may pick up on it. But then the author could have deliberately left it vague, which is more my guess. Princess Alice seemed to be a rather likable character though. And so did Leopold, as a young boy in Cannes.
I have several of Ms. Barron's Jane Austen books, but have yet to read them (I keep getting them and putting them on the shelf and forgetting, shame me). I need to fill out the one's that have been released and I don't have, so that I don't skip a book--which I hate. And I tend to read all of a series at a time, and I REALLY HATE not reading a series in order. But will more than likely get to them in the near future.
The acclaimed author of the bestselling Jane Austen mysteries brings rich historical immediacy to an enthralling new suspense novel centered around Queen Victoria's troubled court...and a secret so dangerous, it could topple thrones.
Windsor Castle, 1861. For the second time in over twenty years, Irish barrister Patrick Fitzgerald has been summoned by the Queen. The first time, he'd been a zealous young legal clerk, investigating what appeared to be a muderous conspiracy against her. Now he is a distinguished gentleman at the top of his profession. And the Queen is a woman in the grip of fear. For on this chilly night, her beloved husband, Prince Albert, lies dying.
With her future clouded by grief, Fitzgerald can't help but notice the Queen is curiously preoccupied with the past. Yet why, and how he can help, is unclear. His bewilderment deepens when the royal coach is violently overturned, nearly killing him and his brilliant young ward, Dr. Georgiana Armistead, niece of the late Dr. Snow, a famed physician who'd attended none other than Her Majesty.
Fitzgerald is sure of one thing: the Queen's carriage was not attacked at random--it was a carefully chosen target. But was it because he rode in it? Fitzgerald won't risk dying in order to find out. He'll leave London and take Georgiana with him---if they can get out alive. For soon the pair find themselves hunted. Little do they know they each carry within their past hidden clues to a devastating royal secret...one they must untangle if they are to survive.
From the streets of London to the lush hills of Cannes, from the slums of St. Giles to the gilded halls of Windsor Castle, A Flaw in the Blood delivers a fascinating tale of pursuit, and the artful blend of period detail and electrifying intrigue that only the remarkable Stephanie Barron can devise.
I enjoyed this book, despite it being a "Queen Victoria" novel, LOL... I don't know, some topics I just avoid...if it were non-fiction, wouldn't be a problem, but sometimes fiction involving real people kinda irk me. There were points that did that for me in this book, but the "chase" kept me involved. I kinda hope that this turns into a series for the characters of Patrick Fitzgerald and Georgiana Armistead. Especially as they head to new destinations.
This novel touches on the royal families hemophilia and the possibilities of its origin. Ms. Barron has made Victoria a less than likable character...But I don't know that much of the Victorian reign, so don't know one way or another...
I do recommend this book, it is a good read, not as "easy" a read as some others I recommend, but definitely worth the time. And it did peak my curiosity to look up a few things. Especially pertaining to the Queen's attitude towards the Irish. And the English view of them in general. And you get the prevalent attitude thru the perspective of Fitzgerald, himself and Irishman. The slurs and disdain, and outright violence, aimed at him only due to his "race". Even his own son is disgusted by his heritage, and lets him (Fitzgerald) know it.
I never did figure out if the Queen was complicit in any of the deeds in this book...but that could just be my own overlook, someone else may pick up on it. But then the author could have deliberately left it vague, which is more my guess. Princess Alice seemed to be a rather likable character though. And so did Leopold, as a young boy in Cannes.
I have several of Ms. Barron's Jane Austen books, but have yet to read them (I keep getting them and putting them on the shelf and forgetting, shame me). I need to fill out the one's that have been released and I don't have, so that I don't skip a book--which I hate. And I tend to read all of a series at a time, and I REALLY HATE not reading a series in order. But will more than likely get to them in the near future.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Clues from Homer classic help date 'Odyssey' slaughter
Clues from Homer classic help date 'Odyssey' slaughter
Story Highlights
Scholars may now know the date King Odysseus returned from the Trojan War
They believe the warrior slaughtered his rivals on April 16, 1178 B.C.
Experts use clues from star and sun positions cited by ancient Greek poet Homer
Scholars debate whether Homer's books reflect the actual history of the Trojan War
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Using clues from star and sun positions mentioned by the ancient Greek poet Homer, scholars think they have determined the date when King Odysseus returned from the Trojan War and slaughtered a group of suitors who had been pressing his wife to marry one of them.
It was April 16, 1178 B.C., that the great warrior struck with arrows, swords and spears, killing those who sought to replace him, a pair of researchers say in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Experts have long debated whether the books of Homer reflect the actual history of the Trojan War and its aftermath.
Marcelo O. Magnasco of Rockefeller University in New York and Constantino Baikouzis of the Astronomical Observatory in La Plata, Argentina, acknowledge that they had to make some assumptions to determine the date Odysseus returned to his kingdom of Ithaca.
But interpreting clues in Homer's "Odyssey" as references to the positions of stars and a total eclipse of the sun allowed them to determine when a particular set of conditions would have occurred.
"What we'd like to achieve is to get the reader to pick up the 'Odyssey' and read it again and ponder," Magnasco said. "And to realize that our understanding of these texts is quite imperfect, and even when entire libraries have been written about Homeric studies, there is still room for further investigation."
Their study could add support to the accuracy of Homer's writing.
"Under the assumption that our work turns out to be correct, it adds to the evidence that he knew what he was talking about," Magnasco said. "It still does not prove the historicity of the return of Odysseus. It only proves that Homer knew about certain astronomical phenomena that happened much before his time."
Homer reports that on the day of the slaughter, the sun is blotted from the sky, possibly a reference to an eclipse. In addition, he mentions more than once that it is the time of a new moon, which is necessary for a total eclipse, the researchers say.
Other clues include:
• Six days before the slaughter, Venus is visible and high in the sky.
• Twenty-nine days before, two constellations -- the Pleiades and Bootes -- are simultaneously visible at sunset.
• And 33 days before, Mercury is high at dawn and near the western end of its trajectory. This is the researchers' interpretation, anyway. Homer wrote that Hermes, the Greek name for Mercury, traveled far west to deliver a message.
"Of course, we believe it's amply justified, otherwise we would not commit it to print. However, we do recognize there's less ammunition to defend this interpretation than the others," Magnasco said.
"Even though the other astronomical references are much clearer, our interpretation of them as allusions to astronomical phenomena is an assumption," he added via e-mail.
For example, Magnasco said, Homer writes that as Odysseus spread his sails out of Ogygia, "sleep did not weigh on his eyelids as he watched the Pleiades, and late-setting Bootes and the Bear."
"We assume he means that as Odysseus set sail shortly after sunset, at nautical twilight the Pleiades and Bootes were simultaneously visible and that Bootes would be the later-setting of the two," Magnasco explained.
"It is a good assumption, because every member of his audience would know what was being discussed, as the Pleiades and Bootes were important to them to know the passage of the seasons and would be very familiar with which times of the year they were visible. Remember, the only calendar they had was the sky."
Because the occurrence of an eclipse and the various star positions repeat over time, Magnasco and Baikouzis set out to calculate when they would all occur in the order mentioned in the "Odyssey."
And their result has Odysseus exacting his revenge April 16, 1178 B.C.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
All AboutAstronomy
Find this article at: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/06/24/Homerstudy.ap/index.html?eref=rss_latest
Story Highlights
Scholars may now know the date King Odysseus returned from the Trojan War
They believe the warrior slaughtered his rivals on April 16, 1178 B.C.
Experts use clues from star and sun positions cited by ancient Greek poet Homer
Scholars debate whether Homer's books reflect the actual history of the Trojan War
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Using clues from star and sun positions mentioned by the ancient Greek poet Homer, scholars think they have determined the date when King Odysseus returned from the Trojan War and slaughtered a group of suitors who had been pressing his wife to marry one of them.
It was April 16, 1178 B.C., that the great warrior struck with arrows, swords and spears, killing those who sought to replace him, a pair of researchers say in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Experts have long debated whether the books of Homer reflect the actual history of the Trojan War and its aftermath.
Marcelo O. Magnasco of Rockefeller University in New York and Constantino Baikouzis of the Astronomical Observatory in La Plata, Argentina, acknowledge that they had to make some assumptions to determine the date Odysseus returned to his kingdom of Ithaca.
But interpreting clues in Homer's "Odyssey" as references to the positions of stars and a total eclipse of the sun allowed them to determine when a particular set of conditions would have occurred.
"What we'd like to achieve is to get the reader to pick up the 'Odyssey' and read it again and ponder," Magnasco said. "And to realize that our understanding of these texts is quite imperfect, and even when entire libraries have been written about Homeric studies, there is still room for further investigation."
Their study could add support to the accuracy of Homer's writing.
"Under the assumption that our work turns out to be correct, it adds to the evidence that he knew what he was talking about," Magnasco said. "It still does not prove the historicity of the return of Odysseus. It only proves that Homer knew about certain astronomical phenomena that happened much before his time."
Homer reports that on the day of the slaughter, the sun is blotted from the sky, possibly a reference to an eclipse. In addition, he mentions more than once that it is the time of a new moon, which is necessary for a total eclipse, the researchers say.
Other clues include:
• Six days before the slaughter, Venus is visible and high in the sky.
• Twenty-nine days before, two constellations -- the Pleiades and Bootes -- are simultaneously visible at sunset.
• And 33 days before, Mercury is high at dawn and near the western end of its trajectory. This is the researchers' interpretation, anyway. Homer wrote that Hermes, the Greek name for Mercury, traveled far west to deliver a message.
"Of course, we believe it's amply justified, otherwise we would not commit it to print. However, we do recognize there's less ammunition to defend this interpretation than the others," Magnasco said.
"Even though the other astronomical references are much clearer, our interpretation of them as allusions to astronomical phenomena is an assumption," he added via e-mail.
For example, Magnasco said, Homer writes that as Odysseus spread his sails out of Ogygia, "sleep did not weigh on his eyelids as he watched the Pleiades, and late-setting Bootes and the Bear."
"We assume he means that as Odysseus set sail shortly after sunset, at nautical twilight the Pleiades and Bootes were simultaneously visible and that Bootes would be the later-setting of the two," Magnasco explained.
"It is a good assumption, because every member of his audience would know what was being discussed, as the Pleiades and Bootes were important to them to know the passage of the seasons and would be very familiar with which times of the year they were visible. Remember, the only calendar they had was the sky."
Because the occurrence of an eclipse and the various star positions repeat over time, Magnasco and Baikouzis set out to calculate when they would all occur in the order mentioned in the "Odyssey."
And their result has Odysseus exacting his revenge April 16, 1178 B.C.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
All AboutAstronomy
Find this article at: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/06/24/Homerstudy.ap/index.html?eref=rss_latest
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Susan Wittig Albert: Nightshade
Book Cover excerpt: Ex-lawyer and current herbalist China Bayles has been called "a leader among female sleuths." (Publisher's Weekly) Now Susan Wittig Albert takes China on a trip down memory lane, where one fesh murder and a bunch of cold cases will force her to face her dark past...
China's herb shop and catering business may be thriving, but she's still reeling from the circumstances surrounding her father's death. Which means she isn't remotely interested in her half brother's investigation into those events. China's husband, on the other hand, has no such qualms about following Miles' lead and finding out more. And when fate forces her to get involved as well, China realizes it's time to bring the past to light---or else it will haunt her for the rest of her life.
But China and McQuaid discover that Miles may have been keeping as many secrets as he seemed determined to uncover---for starters, knowledge of the whereabouts of their father's wrecked car, a missing key piece of evidence. How deep do the layers of secrecy go? And who has a stake in concealing the truth after sixteen years?
Piecing together clues, China and McQuaid embark on what feels like a wild-goose chase, tracking down the evidence that might prove how several old cold case murders are related to her father's death. But the closer they get to untangling the story, the more China longs for answers to her past that she may never get...
Quotes:
p.31
Cass does not concern herself with calories and refuses to be defined by her dress size. "I am abundantly ready to enjoy life and all it has to offer," she says with a flourish. "I am a woman of substance, and I refuse to sell my sizable self short."
p121
The front of the house was screened by forsythia bushes---in the Far East, where the plant originated, the roots are boiled to treat bacterial and fungal infections---......
p.157
The fruit of the silver-leaf nightshade (Solanum elaegnifolium) is a berry tht is yellow or blackish when ripe. It was used by Southwestern Indians in making cheese. The berries were also used to treat sore throat and toothache. Nightshade berries mixed with cream have reportedly been used as a cure for poison ivy.
Wildflowers of Texas
Geyata Ajilvsgi
p.185
Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) is an evergreen shrub in the Solanaceae family. It grows up to six feet in height inthe Mediterranean region, as well as the Middle East, Africa, India, and Pakistan. Its fruits, like the berries of other nightshades, have been used to coagulate milk in cheese-making.
Ashwagandha is widely used in Ayurvedic, Unani, and Middle Eastern traditional medicines, where it is regarded as an aphrodisiac, a rejuvenative and a panacea. Large doses of ashwagandha should not be used during pregnancy due to its actions as an abortifacient.
p.232
Hurriedly, I filled his bowl with dry dog food and added a spoonful of alfalfa powder and another of flaxseed oil---herbs that help him cope with arthritis and other ailments experienced by elderly bassets.
p.267
Nightshade Spa Secrets
For a skin-softening facial that will remove dead cells and restore the acid balance of your skin, try this tomato astringent scrub. Mix up to 3 tablespoons tomato juice with 1/8 cup of granulated sugar until it has the consistency of frosting. Pat the mixture onto your face and rub with gentle, circular motions. Rinse and pat dry.
Potatoes can make you beautiful, too. Puffy skin under your eyes? Cut six thin slices of potatoes. With a washcloth and cool water, moisten the skin around the eyes. Lie down, place three slices of potatoes over each eye, and fold the damp washcloth over them to hold them in place. Rest for ten minutes---when you get up, the skin will be tighter and feel much cooler.
Or try this old recipe for potato elbow-and-heel cream. Peel, cook, and mash one medium potato. Mix with 1 teaspoon honey, 1 teaspoon olive oil, and enough potato water to make a smooth, thick paste. Massage into rough elbows and heels; after ten minutes, rinse off. For rough skin on the feet, apply potato cream before going to bed, and put on a pair of cotton socks.
Ruby Wilcox's Spa Secrets.
The following: Nightshades: Nice---and Nasty will be on my aromatherapy and herb blog and the recipes on my recipe blog...I only copy them here to have handy for me...since this is from a library book due back and I want to read again...no copyright infringement intended. All comes from Susan Wittig Albert's book Nightshade and all copyright belongs to her.
I really enjoyed this book! It was a nail-biter, one to keep you up at night until you finish it. And I've read nearly all of her China Bayles' books (I missed one or two, but one is sitting on my couch and will be read when my library books are done, LOL). Of all of them, this one is my favorite so far... the author is getting better, and she wasn't anywhere near bad to start with! Other than the excerpt from the book cover, will give nothing else away, cause frankly, if you care, read the book!
I do foresee China's niece Caitlin showing up again in the future. And it would be kinda cool if she moved into the "neighborhood" so that she, Brian and Jake (Brian's girlfriend) could delve into their own mysteries, a la the Bobbsie Twins (spelling is wrong, I just know), Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden, et al. Hey, maybe a new series for young adults? Cool idea.
China's herb shop and catering business may be thriving, but she's still reeling from the circumstances surrounding her father's death. Which means she isn't remotely interested in her half brother's investigation into those events. China's husband, on the other hand, has no such qualms about following Miles' lead and finding out more. And when fate forces her to get involved as well, China realizes it's time to bring the past to light---or else it will haunt her for the rest of her life.
But China and McQuaid discover that Miles may have been keeping as many secrets as he seemed determined to uncover---for starters, knowledge of the whereabouts of their father's wrecked car, a missing key piece of evidence. How deep do the layers of secrecy go? And who has a stake in concealing the truth after sixteen years?
Piecing together clues, China and McQuaid embark on what feels like a wild-goose chase, tracking down the evidence that might prove how several old cold case murders are related to her father's death. But the closer they get to untangling the story, the more China longs for answers to her past that she may never get...
Quotes:
p.31
Cass does not concern herself with calories and refuses to be defined by her dress size. "I am abundantly ready to enjoy life and all it has to offer," she says with a flourish. "I am a woman of substance, and I refuse to sell my sizable self short."
p121
The front of the house was screened by forsythia bushes---in the Far East, where the plant originated, the roots are boiled to treat bacterial and fungal infections---......
p.157
The fruit of the silver-leaf nightshade (Solanum elaegnifolium) is a berry tht is yellow or blackish when ripe. It was used by Southwestern Indians in making cheese. The berries were also used to treat sore throat and toothache. Nightshade berries mixed with cream have reportedly been used as a cure for poison ivy.
Wildflowers of Texas
Geyata Ajilvsgi
p.185
Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) is an evergreen shrub in the Solanaceae family. It grows up to six feet in height inthe Mediterranean region, as well as the Middle East, Africa, India, and Pakistan. Its fruits, like the berries of other nightshades, have been used to coagulate milk in cheese-making.
Ashwagandha is widely used in Ayurvedic, Unani, and Middle Eastern traditional medicines, where it is regarded as an aphrodisiac, a rejuvenative and a panacea. Large doses of ashwagandha should not be used during pregnancy due to its actions as an abortifacient.
p.232
Hurriedly, I filled his bowl with dry dog food and added a spoonful of alfalfa powder and another of flaxseed oil---herbs that help him cope with arthritis and other ailments experienced by elderly bassets.
p.267
Nightshade Spa Secrets
For a skin-softening facial that will remove dead cells and restore the acid balance of your skin, try this tomato astringent scrub. Mix up to 3 tablespoons tomato juice with 1/8 cup of granulated sugar until it has the consistency of frosting. Pat the mixture onto your face and rub with gentle, circular motions. Rinse and pat dry.
Potatoes can make you beautiful, too. Puffy skin under your eyes? Cut six thin slices of potatoes. With a washcloth and cool water, moisten the skin around the eyes. Lie down, place three slices of potatoes over each eye, and fold the damp washcloth over them to hold them in place. Rest for ten minutes---when you get up, the skin will be tighter and feel much cooler.
Or try this old recipe for potato elbow-and-heel cream. Peel, cook, and mash one medium potato. Mix with 1 teaspoon honey, 1 teaspoon olive oil, and enough potato water to make a smooth, thick paste. Massage into rough elbows and heels; after ten minutes, rinse off. For rough skin on the feet, apply potato cream before going to bed, and put on a pair of cotton socks.
Ruby Wilcox's Spa Secrets.
The following: Nightshades: Nice---and Nasty will be on my aromatherapy and herb blog and the recipes on my recipe blog...I only copy them here to have handy for me...since this is from a library book due back and I want to read again...no copyright infringement intended. All comes from Susan Wittig Albert's book Nightshade and all copyright belongs to her.
I really enjoyed this book! It was a nail-biter, one to keep you up at night until you finish it. And I've read nearly all of her China Bayles' books (I missed one or two, but one is sitting on my couch and will be read when my library books are done, LOL). Of all of them, this one is my favorite so far... the author is getting better, and she wasn't anywhere near bad to start with! Other than the excerpt from the book cover, will give nothing else away, cause frankly, if you care, read the book!
I do foresee China's niece Caitlin showing up again in the future. And it would be kinda cool if she moved into the "neighborhood" so that she, Brian and Jake (Brian's girlfriend) could delve into their own mysteries, a la the Bobbsie Twins (spelling is wrong, I just know), Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden, et al. Hey, maybe a new series for young adults? Cool idea.
the Bucket List
This movie was really, really good! I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would, and probably would have enjoyed it more if my sister hadn't called (twice) during the movie...I stopped the movie each time. And rolled my aunts hair. So it was an interrupted viewing. Which really kinda pissed me off. But anyway.
This is definitely a movie that those of a "certain" generation OUGHT to watch, but also the younger generations ought to be encouraged to view as well. The lesson in it is pretty much to not take life for granted, it could end at any time.
Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play two very different men from very different walks of life who wind up sharing a hospital room when both are diagnosed with cancer. And not good odds. So Morgan's character starts a "Bucket List", things he wants to do before he "kicks the bucket." He only gets three jotted down before he crumples up the paper and tosses it aside, because the doctor has just given him very grim news. Jack's character takes a look at it and says they ought to do it, and make it more of an adventure. His character has the money to fund the trip. They travel the world, see amazing, I mean AMAZING sights, and become friends. Ornery ones, but still friends.
The ending, not going to give it away here, is just truly heart-inspiring and wonderful. And I don't know if the scenic shots are the actual places or stock film or backlot scenery or whatever, but it was BEAUTIFUL!!
And as the credits roll, John Mayer's song "Say" comes on, and is so truly inspired. Whomever chose this song, kudo's to you. Makes the tears just come without any more prompting than the words and the movie you just witnessed.
Everyone should make a Bucket List...things that you really want to do before you die. You may not achieve them all, but you can get a start on them. You never, ever, know when your time may come, and you cannot wait. It may be tomorrow or forty years from now. I have a partial list in my head, and realize that due to finances, I am unlikely to realize some if not most of them. But I can dream.
This is definitely a movie that those of a "certain" generation OUGHT to watch, but also the younger generations ought to be encouraged to view as well. The lesson in it is pretty much to not take life for granted, it could end at any time.
Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play two very different men from very different walks of life who wind up sharing a hospital room when both are diagnosed with cancer. And not good odds. So Morgan's character starts a "Bucket List", things he wants to do before he "kicks the bucket." He only gets three jotted down before he crumples up the paper and tosses it aside, because the doctor has just given him very grim news. Jack's character takes a look at it and says they ought to do it, and make it more of an adventure. His character has the money to fund the trip. They travel the world, see amazing, I mean AMAZING sights, and become friends. Ornery ones, but still friends.
The ending, not going to give it away here, is just truly heart-inspiring and wonderful. And I don't know if the scenic shots are the actual places or stock film or backlot scenery or whatever, but it was BEAUTIFUL!!
And as the credits roll, John Mayer's song "Say" comes on, and is so truly inspired. Whomever chose this song, kudo's to you. Makes the tears just come without any more prompting than the words and the movie you just witnessed.
Everyone should make a Bucket List...things that you really want to do before you die. You may not achieve them all, but you can get a start on them. You never, ever, know when your time may come, and you cannot wait. It may be tomorrow or forty years from now. I have a partial list in my head, and realize that due to finances, I am unlikely to realize some if not most of them. But I can dream.
JOHN MAYER LYRICS
"Say"
Take all of your wasted honor
Every little past frustration
Take all of your so-called problems,
Better put ‘em in quotations
Say what you need to say [x8]
Walking like a one man army
Fighting with the shadows in your head
Living out the same old moment
Knowing you’d be better off instead, If you only could . . .
Say what you need to say [x8]
Have no fear for giving in
Have no fear for giving over
You’d better know that in the end
Its better to say too much
Then never say what you need to say again
Even if your hands are shaking
And your faith is broken
Even as the eyes are closing
Do it with a heart wide open
Say what you need to say [x24]
"Say"
Take all of your wasted honor
Every little past frustration
Take all of your so-called problems,
Better put ‘em in quotations
Say what you need to say [x8]
Walking like a one man army
Fighting with the shadows in your head
Living out the same old moment
Knowing you’d be better off instead, If you only could . . .
Say what you need to say [x8]
Have no fear for giving in
Have no fear for giving over
You’d better know that in the end
Its better to say too much
Then never say what you need to say again
Even if your hands are shaking
And your faith is broken
Even as the eyes are closing
Do it with a heart wide open
Say what you need to say [x24]
Friday, June 20, 2008
Obit: Tasha Tudor
This truly saddens me, I loved the fairy tale book I had of hers when I was a child!
OBITUARY
Tasha Tudor, illustrator of children's books, dies at 92
By Douglas Martin
Published: June 20, 2008
Tasha Tudor, a children's illustrator whose pastel watercolors and delicately penciled lines depicted an idyllic, old-fashioned vision of the 19th-century way of life she pursued herself - including weaving, spinning, gathering eggs and milking goats - died on Wednesday at her home in Marlboro, Vermont, her family said.
Tasha Tudor, illustrator of children's books, dies at 92
By Douglas Martin
Published: June 20, 2008
Tasha Tudor, a children's illustrator whose pastel watercolors and delicately penciled lines depicted an idyllic, old-fashioned vision of the 19th-century way of life she pursued herself - including weaving, spinning, gathering eggs and milking goats - died on Wednesday at her home in Marlboro, Vermont, her family said.
She was 92, if one counts only the life that began on Aug. 28, 1915. Tudor frequently said that she was the reincarnation of a sea captain's wife who lived from 1800 to 1840 or 1842, and that it was this earlier life she was replicating by living so ardently in the past.
A cottage industry grew out of Tudor's art, which has illustrated nearly 100 books. The family sells greeting cards, prints, plates, aprons, dolls, quilts and more, all in a sentimental, rustic, but still refined style resembling that of Beatrix Potter.
For 70 years her illustrations elicited wide admiration: The New York Times in 1941 said her pictures "have the same fragile beauty of early spring evenings."
Her drawings, particularly the early ones, often illustrated the almost equally memorable stories she herself wrote, like Sparrow Post, about a postal service for dolls with delivery by birds.
Two of Tudor's books were named Caldecott Honor Books: "Mother Goose" (1944) and "1 Is One" (1956). Tudor was just awarded the Regina Medal by the Catholic Library Association.
But it was her uncompromising immersion in another, less comfortable century that most fascinated people. She wore kerchiefs, hand-knitted sweaters, fitted bodices and flowing skirts, and often went barefoot. She reared her four children in a home without electricity or running water until her youngest turned 5. She raised her own farm animals; turned flax she had grown into clothing; and lived by homespun wisdom: Sow root crops on a waning moon, above-ground plants on a waxing one.
Starling Burgess, who later legally changed her name to Tasha Tudor, was born in Boston to well-connected but not wealthy parents. Her mother, Rosamond Tudor, was a portrait painter, and her father, William Starling Burgess, a yacht and airplane designer who collaborated with Buckminster Fuller.
In an autobiography she wrote in 1951, Tudor said she did not start school until she was 9, although other biographies say she began as early as 7. She attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, for a year, but said she learned painting from her mother. Her art was often framed by ornate borders like those from a medieval manuscript, but more whimsical.
Partly to protect her from Jazz Age Greenwich Village, where her mother had moved after she was divorced, Tudor was sent to live with a couple in Connecticut, drama enthusiasts who included children in the plays they put on. She soon developed a love of times past and things rural, going to auctions to buy antique clothing before she was 10. At 15 she used money she had made teaching nursery school to buy her first cow.
In 1938 she married Thomas Leighton McCready Jr., who was in the real estate business. McCready encouraged his bride to put together a folio of pictures and seek publishers. She was repeatedly turned down before her first published book, "Pumpkin Moonshine" (1938), was accepted by Oxford University Press. It was the start of a flood, many still in print.
Tudor's favorite of all her books was "Corgiville Fair," one of several she wrote about the Welsh corgi dogs she kept as pets. Her 1963 illustrated version of "The Secret Garden," by Frances Hodgson Burnett, tells of children enraptured by a mysterious garden. The volume of Clement Moore's "Night Before Christmas" that she illustrated remains popular.
She and her husband moved to a 19th-century farmhouse in New Hampshire that lacked electricity and running water, but had 17 rooms and 450 acres.
Tudor painted in the kitchen, in between baking bread and washing dishes. She created a dollhouse with a cast of characters, two of whom were married in a ceremony covered by Life magazine.
Tudor was divorced from McCready, who later died, and from a second husband, Allan John Woods. In 1972 she sold the New Hampshire farm and moved onto her property near her son Seth in Marlboro.
In addition to Seth, Tudor is survived by her daughters Bethany Tudor of West Brattleboro, Vermont, and Efner Tudor Holmes of Contoocook, New Hampshire; another son, Thomas, of Fairfax, Virginia; eight grandchildren; four step-grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and a half-sister, Ann Hopps of Camden, Maine.
Tudor, who could play the dulcimer and handle a gun, once promised a reporter for The New York Times that she could find a four-leaf clover within five minutes and came back with a five-leaf one in four minutes. She kept a seven-leaf clover framed in her room.
She told The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk in 1996 that it was her intention to go straight back to the 1830s after her death.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
I want this book!
The Unlikely Lavender Queen: A Memoir of Unexpected Blossoming
by Jeannie Ralston
$23.95 List price
Publisher: Broadway Books
Pub. Date: May 2008
ISBN-13: 9780767927956
272pp
Synopsis
“I couldn’t help but question how I’d gotten to this strange spot in my life, so far from what I’d expected for myself. Yes, there had been a heady romance a few years back. Then a slew of subsequent decisions, fueled by love and yearnings I didn’t even know I had. But I never, ever would have suspected that this was where the sum total of them would bring me. That afternoon a new doubt dripped into my mind. When do you know, I wondered, whether the choices you’ve made were the right ones?”
_____________________________________________________________________________________
In 1990, Jeannie Ralston was a successful magazine writer and bona fide city girl—the type of woman who couldn't imagine living on soil not shaded by skyscrapers. By 1994, she had called off an engagement, married Robb, a National Geographic photographer, and was living in Blanco Texas, population 1600.
THE UNLIKELY LAVENDER QUEEN is the intimate story of a woman who gives up a lot for the man she loves – her beloved blue state, bagels and all-night bodegas—only to have to wonder: Was it too much? Ralston offers a lively chronicle of her life as a wife, new mother and an urban settler in rural Texas. As she labors to convert a dilapidated barn into a livable home, deal with scorpions and unbearably hot summers, raise two young children while Robb is frequently away on assignment, she realizes her ultimate struggle is to reconcile her life plans and goals with her husband’s without coming out the proverbial loser. And just when it seems like she might be losing that fight—and herself— a little purplebloom changes her life.
For centuries lavender has been a mystical herb, so valuable to ancient Romans that a bushel would cost nearly a month’s wages. But when Robb returns from a trip to Provence with a plan for growing lavender on their land, Ralston is not convinced—in fact the last thing she needed or wanted was to take up farming on top of everything else. Then, much to her surprise, she slowly but surely falls in love with lavender, and in the course of growing and selling blooms, hosting the public at the farm, and creating lavender products, she discovers a new side of herself. A few short years later, Ralston had built Hill Country Lavender, a thriving commercial enterprise that transforms both her little corner of Texas and her life.
THE UNLIKELY LAVENDER QUEEN will resonate with all women who have faced the tough choices that come with “having it all” and secretly (or not so secretly) hoped for great adventure to come along and surprise them. Ralston’s honest, funny, and poignant memoir is a testament to the fact that such adventures await us around every bend in life.
Publishers Weekly
Arriving in Manhattan for a McCall'smagazine summer internship when she was 21, Ralston was smitten with big-city life. Soon she had the career of her dreams, a Chelsea apartment, even a film student fiancé. Then, on a feature assignment for Life, she met Robb, a photographer for National Geographic, and her life was up-ended. Before long, Ralston was leaving her boyfriend and New York City, to move with Robb to his home state of Texas. They settled first in Austin, but Robb wanted a less urban lifestyle, so they bought land with a creek and an old stone barn in the Texas Hill Country. Robb's busy schedule of international photo shoots left Ralston in charge of house renovations, hardly her forte. Then Robb had his next idea-they'd raise lavender on their limestone-rich land, which was similar to the soil of Provence. Ralston agreed, provided they start having children. Together, they began a successful niche-industry, growing and processing lavender into a variety of marketable products. In this satisfying and enjoyable story, the reluctant Ralston eventually falls in love with their fields of lavender. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
All rights reserved.
Biography
JEANNIE RALSTON is a contributing editor to Parenting and a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Life, The New York Times, National Geographic, and other publications. She and her family currently live in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
by Jeannie Ralston
$23.95 List price
Publisher: Broadway Books
Pub. Date: May 2008
ISBN-13: 9780767927956
272pp
Synopsis
“I couldn’t help but question how I’d gotten to this strange spot in my life, so far from what I’d expected for myself. Yes, there had been a heady romance a few years back. Then a slew of subsequent decisions, fueled by love and yearnings I didn’t even know I had. But I never, ever would have suspected that this was where the sum total of them would bring me. That afternoon a new doubt dripped into my mind. When do you know, I wondered, whether the choices you’ve made were the right ones?”
_____________________________________________________________________________________
In 1990, Jeannie Ralston was a successful magazine writer and bona fide city girl—the type of woman who couldn't imagine living on soil not shaded by skyscrapers. By 1994, she had called off an engagement, married Robb, a National Geographic photographer, and was living in Blanco Texas, population 1600.
THE UNLIKELY LAVENDER QUEEN is the intimate story of a woman who gives up a lot for the man she loves – her beloved blue state, bagels and all-night bodegas—only to have to wonder: Was it too much? Ralston offers a lively chronicle of her life as a wife, new mother and an urban settler in rural Texas. As she labors to convert a dilapidated barn into a livable home, deal with scorpions and unbearably hot summers, raise two young children while Robb is frequently away on assignment, she realizes her ultimate struggle is to reconcile her life plans and goals with her husband’s without coming out the proverbial loser. And just when it seems like she might be losing that fight—and herself— a little purplebloom changes her life.
For centuries lavender has been a mystical herb, so valuable to ancient Romans that a bushel would cost nearly a month’s wages. But when Robb returns from a trip to Provence with a plan for growing lavender on their land, Ralston is not convinced—in fact the last thing she needed or wanted was to take up farming on top of everything else. Then, much to her surprise, she slowly but surely falls in love with lavender, and in the course of growing and selling blooms, hosting the public at the farm, and creating lavender products, she discovers a new side of herself. A few short years later, Ralston had built Hill Country Lavender, a thriving commercial enterprise that transforms both her little corner of Texas and her life.
THE UNLIKELY LAVENDER QUEEN will resonate with all women who have faced the tough choices that come with “having it all” and secretly (or not so secretly) hoped for great adventure to come along and surprise them. Ralston’s honest, funny, and poignant memoir is a testament to the fact that such adventures await us around every bend in life.
Publishers Weekly
Arriving in Manhattan for a McCall'smagazine summer internship when she was 21, Ralston was smitten with big-city life. Soon she had the career of her dreams, a Chelsea apartment, even a film student fiancé. Then, on a feature assignment for Life, she met Robb, a photographer for National Geographic, and her life was up-ended. Before long, Ralston was leaving her boyfriend and New York City, to move with Robb to his home state of Texas. They settled first in Austin, but Robb wanted a less urban lifestyle, so they bought land with a creek and an old stone barn in the Texas Hill Country. Robb's busy schedule of international photo shoots left Ralston in charge of house renovations, hardly her forte. Then Robb had his next idea-they'd raise lavender on their limestone-rich land, which was similar to the soil of Provence. Ralston agreed, provided they start having children. Together, they began a successful niche-industry, growing and processing lavender into a variety of marketable products. In this satisfying and enjoyable story, the reluctant Ralston eventually falls in love with their fields of lavender. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
All rights reserved.
Biography
JEANNIE RALSTON is a contributing editor to Parenting and a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Life, The New York Times, National Geographic, and other publications. She and her family currently live in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
a place to catalog your books
I've been looking for a site or even a program that I can understand that would do this!!! Great!
http://www.librarything.com/
http://www.librarything.com/
Henry, Sue: Degrees of Seperation
Book cover excerpt:
Sue Henry's Jessie Arnold mysteries have been praised for both their beauty ("twice as vivid as Michener's natural Alaska"--The Washington Post Book World) and their suspense ("The twists and turns keep you turning the pages"---The Denver Post). Now the champion sled-dog racer returns to the trail after a long hiatus...only to stumble upon something unexpected across her path.
After months of recuperatino from knee surgery, Jessie Arnold is eager to begin training for this year's Iditarod. With the loving care of Alaska state trooper Alex Jensen, her convalescence wasn't as painful as it could have been, but she and her dogs have a lot of work to do if they're going to qualify for the race.
Jessie's first practice run goes smoothly until her sled hits a bump along the trail---a snow- and ice-shrouded dead body bearing a gunshot wound. The victim is Donny Thompson, the youngest son of a mechanic from the nearby town of Palmer. What Thompson was doing on a musher's trail without any evidence of a sled and dogs is anyone's guess. But what worries Alex and Jessie more is how close to their home the man was killed...
quotes::::
p.94 Before he could agree, several dogs stood up, moved nervously and began to howl a protest as, a second or two later, a slight tremor briefly shook the ground under their feet, then stopped.
"Aftershock," Jessie said, as her dogs quieted. "The dogs feel it, or hear it, before we do."
"They do?"
"Yes. Most animals are more sensitive to it. Have you ever noticed how still it gets just before a quake?"
Billy shook his head. "Uh-uh."
"It's like all the birds are gone. You can always hear them in the trees here, like background noise you don't notice much. But you really notice when they stop chirping and aren't flying around. The ravens disappear just before a quake, like they know it's coming somehow."
"But the dongs didn't get quiet. They were howling and whining, and jumping around on their tethers like they wanted t run. Some of them crawled into their boxes and lay down. Then the ground started to shake."
"Yeah, it's odd. I guess different animals have different reactions. Some cats can disappear for days. I read somewhere that a woman's cat carried off and hid all her kittens---didn't bring them back home for several days. Fish have been seen swimming closer to the surface of the water. Bees may all fly out of their hive just before an earthquake and not come back for ten or fifteen minutes. Snakes have been known to crawl out of their hibernation dens and, being cold-blooded, freeze to death outside after a winter quake. Cows can be kncked off their feet and horses panic."
"Wow! Where did you learn all that?"
"Where do we learn a lot of things these days? Go online and Google 'predicting quakes from unusual animal behavior.' There's an interesting article by a guy named Brown."
"Cool. I'll do that. Now, what have you go for me to do?"
p. 139
"...Never did like funerals. Guess the next one I go to will be my own---when I won't give a damn." Hardy chuckled to himself, reminding Alex of something his father had once said about whistling past a graveyard.
p.172
...The dogs ate hungrily and were not bothered by the chill in the air, for they were bred with thick coats to withstand cold weather. To them it was normal for at least half the year.
Too bad mushers aren't covered with such protective coats, Jessie thought and grinned at the idea, picturing some she knew who wore heavy beards all winter for just such protection from the icy winds of the far north when they were out on the trail.
p.175 (I include this quote only because it seems to be a preview of the next Maxie book, in a way....
"Well," Maxie confessed, "I did mean to go down the road, maybe see a bit of Texas or even Mexico. But somehow I just couldn't get my self geared up for it this year. Would you believe me if I told you I've a hankering for snow and northern lights?"
"You're asking the pot to call the kettle black with that one," Jessie told her. " You've no idea how much I've been yearning for snow, now that my knee is well enough to get back on a sled."
p. 192
"It's true, " he said, chuckling. "It's all true. And it's not just here in the valley. I think the whole state's full of people with less than six degrees of separation. All you have to do is ask the right question about someone and the person you're asking either knows them or they know someone who does."
p. 209
What kind of person was this Robin Fenneli anyway? Her name, Robin, had caused him to assume a cheerful, attractive idea of her that was now in contradiction to what her living space had told him.
p. 210
Or did it simply mirror a woman whose character ws distinctly at odds with the name she had been given?
p. 213
"How nice it is," Maxie said, "to be able to walk from your house right into the trees."
p. 213
Jessie recalled a story for Maxie about a cross-country skier who had his fur hat snatched from his head one evening by a hunting owl that left talon wounds on his head and flew away with his headgear, thinking it had captured dinner.
p. 234-235
..."It reminds me of that old thing about trying to fit rocks, pebbles, and sand into the same jar. If you don't do it in the correct order they won't all fit in. But if you put the rocks---the essential stuff---in first, then the pebbles---important and related stuff, but not so essential---in second, they'll all fall down among the rocks. Then, last, you pour in the sand---the related but not really important stuff. And it will all fit nicely into the jar."
p. 256 ( I include this quote just cause I need to look up what a certain phrase/word means)
"Will be in jail from now till next Tishah-b'Ab, if I have anything to say about it."
Really liked this book as well. And Maxie shows up again in this book, providing insight and support for Alex and Jessie. This one was not as "gripping" as others, but still provided a good read.
Sue Henry's Jessie Arnold mysteries have been praised for both their beauty ("twice as vivid as Michener's natural Alaska"--The Washington Post Book World) and their suspense ("The twists and turns keep you turning the pages"---The Denver Post). Now the champion sled-dog racer returns to the trail after a long hiatus...only to stumble upon something unexpected across her path.
After months of recuperatino from knee surgery, Jessie Arnold is eager to begin training for this year's Iditarod. With the loving care of Alaska state trooper Alex Jensen, her convalescence wasn't as painful as it could have been, but she and her dogs have a lot of work to do if they're going to qualify for the race.
Jessie's first practice run goes smoothly until her sled hits a bump along the trail---a snow- and ice-shrouded dead body bearing a gunshot wound. The victim is Donny Thompson, the youngest son of a mechanic from the nearby town of Palmer. What Thompson was doing on a musher's trail without any evidence of a sled and dogs is anyone's guess. But what worries Alex and Jessie more is how close to their home the man was killed...
quotes::::
p.94 Before he could agree, several dogs stood up, moved nervously and began to howl a protest as, a second or two later, a slight tremor briefly shook the ground under their feet, then stopped.
"Aftershock," Jessie said, as her dogs quieted. "The dogs feel it, or hear it, before we do."
"They do?"
"Yes. Most animals are more sensitive to it. Have you ever noticed how still it gets just before a quake?"
Billy shook his head. "Uh-uh."
"It's like all the birds are gone. You can always hear them in the trees here, like background noise you don't notice much. But you really notice when they stop chirping and aren't flying around. The ravens disappear just before a quake, like they know it's coming somehow."
"But the dongs didn't get quiet. They were howling and whining, and jumping around on their tethers like they wanted t run. Some of them crawled into their boxes and lay down. Then the ground started to shake."
"Yeah, it's odd. I guess different animals have different reactions. Some cats can disappear for days. I read somewhere that a woman's cat carried off and hid all her kittens---didn't bring them back home for several days. Fish have been seen swimming closer to the surface of the water. Bees may all fly out of their hive just before an earthquake and not come back for ten or fifteen minutes. Snakes have been known to crawl out of their hibernation dens and, being cold-blooded, freeze to death outside after a winter quake. Cows can be kncked off their feet and horses panic."
"Wow! Where did you learn all that?"
"Where do we learn a lot of things these days? Go online and Google 'predicting quakes from unusual animal behavior.' There's an interesting article by a guy named Brown."
"Cool. I'll do that. Now, what have you go for me to do?"
p. 139
"...Never did like funerals. Guess the next one I go to will be my own---when I won't give a damn." Hardy chuckled to himself, reminding Alex of something his father had once said about whistling past a graveyard.
p.172
...The dogs ate hungrily and were not bothered by the chill in the air, for they were bred with thick coats to withstand cold weather. To them it was normal for at least half the year.
Too bad mushers aren't covered with such protective coats, Jessie thought and grinned at the idea, picturing some she knew who wore heavy beards all winter for just such protection from the icy winds of the far north when they were out on the trail.
p.175 (I include this quote only because it seems to be a preview of the next Maxie book, in a way....
"Well," Maxie confessed, "I did mean to go down the road, maybe see a bit of Texas or even Mexico. But somehow I just couldn't get my self geared up for it this year. Would you believe me if I told you I've a hankering for snow and northern lights?"
"You're asking the pot to call the kettle black with that one," Jessie told her. " You've no idea how much I've been yearning for snow, now that my knee is well enough to get back on a sled."
p. 192
"It's true, " he said, chuckling. "It's all true. And it's not just here in the valley. I think the whole state's full of people with less than six degrees of separation. All you have to do is ask the right question about someone and the person you're asking either knows them or they know someone who does."
p. 209
What kind of person was this Robin Fenneli anyway? Her name, Robin, had caused him to assume a cheerful, attractive idea of her that was now in contradiction to what her living space had told him.
p. 210
Or did it simply mirror a woman whose character ws distinctly at odds with the name she had been given?
p. 213
"How nice it is," Maxie said, "to be able to walk from your house right into the trees."
p. 213
Jessie recalled a story for Maxie about a cross-country skier who had his fur hat snatched from his head one evening by a hunting owl that left talon wounds on his head and flew away with his headgear, thinking it had captured dinner.
p. 234-235
..."It reminds me of that old thing about trying to fit rocks, pebbles, and sand into the same jar. If you don't do it in the correct order they won't all fit in. But if you put the rocks---the essential stuff---in first, then the pebbles---important and related stuff, but not so essential---in second, they'll all fall down among the rocks. Then, last, you pour in the sand---the related but not really important stuff. And it will all fit nicely into the jar."
p. 256 ( I include this quote just cause I need to look up what a certain phrase/word means)
"Will be in jail from now till next Tishah-b'Ab, if I have anything to say about it."
Really liked this book as well. And Maxie shows up again in this book, providing insight and support for Alex and Jessie. This one was not as "gripping" as others, but still provided a good read.
Henry, Sue: Death Trap
Book cover excerpt:
No author on the crime fiction scene brings the beauty, mystery, majesty, and danger of the Alaskan frontier mor vibrantly alive than critically acclaimed award winner Sue Henry. Now she takes us due north once more tothis rugged land that famed "musher" and sometime sleuth Jessie Arnold calls home---a breathtaking world where the summers are brief and winters, like death, are cold and long.
With August drawing to a close, Jessie Arnold is feeling empty. Not even the return of a friend can lessen her disappointment over having to miss the approaching Alaskan dogsled racing season because of her recent knee surger. But a request to help man the Iditarod booth at the Alaska State Fair is a godsend, something that keeps Jessie involved and happy...until a corpse turns up on the fairgrounds.
The murder is an expecially brutal one: a small-time hoodlum dispatched by a double-blade axe blow to the skull. Though she has already seen too much death in her lifetime, Jessie becomes a participant in the proceedings when her beloved lead sled dog, Tank, vanishes. Angry and sick with worry, she sets out to find him and unwittingly discovers connections that link Tank's disappearance to the murder and a recent theft in bizarre and disturbing ways.
Friends new and old are soon involved as well. Musher Lynn Ehlers, the parents of a local boy, and state troopers are plunged into a desperate and harrowing search that leads them across lush forested valleys, up silent, forbidding mountains, and into Alaska's darkest heart. Because, suddenly, a sled dog is not the only missing player in this drama. Under alarming circumstances, Jessie Arnold has also vanished.
Quotes:
p.11
From somewhere close a raven called from high above her head but, though she carefully inspected the treetops, remained a disembodied sound. Three times it broke the stillness of the woods with its ragged croak before taking flight, a soaring black silhouette against the thin cloud cover of the sky. Hearing the raven reminded Jessie that, according to legend, this trickster of the northern world had once had a lovely singing voice and pure white feathers but had lost them both in flames cast by an angry magician from whom it had craftily stolen the sun, moon, and stars. The heat had charred it black and left it with only the scorched croak; one of the many raven tales that always made her smile.
p. 11
For over an hour, the three enjoyed the freedom of the woods. Slowly the overcast cleared and sunshine brightened and warmed the morning with long shafts of light that splashed down through the canopy of the branches. Jessie's mood lifted, and she found herself humming in wordless appreciation of the world around her. It was good sometimes to wander slowly along and notice the many small things that would soon be buried in snow. On a sled, behind a dog team, they all vanished in a blur of speed. Fall was her favorite season, and it was pleasat to have time to enjoy it, even if that gratification was the result of losing her usual training runs.
p. 48
....We learn guilt early, at our mother's knee, so doing what is expected of us is houw we tend to fit into society with the least amount of conflict. But I thought of all the things in my life that I'd done because they were expected of me, and the mental pile of shoulds and ought-tos grew until it was a mountain compared to my want-tos. Should and ought-to was what go t me pigeonholed in that unlockable room in the first place, wasn't it? All at once it seemed insufferable. I'd escaped successfully and made it to the fair. So I decided, for once, to do what I wanted. Therefore I didn't go back."
p. 62
...I had decided that I valued my freedom more than my dignity. What is dignity anyway but a facade for others? When you're by yourself it matters very little. Think about the way you behave when you're alone compared to your public persona. Besides, the more you enjoy living freely, the less you need dignity as a shield, because you stop making assuptions about what others may thing of you.
p.100
The black alpaca had been recently sheared, escept for its tail and the top of its head. The other had been left fluffy with white fleece so soft it seemed unreal when Jessie put a hand between the bars of the pen to touch it. The animal had a shaggy fringe of black on top of its head that hung down in front, almost obscuring its vision. But it was the huge eyes of the animals that attracted her. With no definition between pupil, iris, or sclera, they were so completely dark that i t ws difficult to tell where the alpacas were looking. Framed with incredibly long lashes, their eyes reminded Jessie of still pools of water that gleamed with reflections on the surface but kept the secrets of their depths. So calm and slow-moving they seemed almost sleepy, the two animals stood staring into the distance beyond those who stopped to admire them, but she had a feeling that their enigmatic liquid eyes missed very little of what went on around them.
I really enjoyed this book. There were moments of humor thrown in here and there that it made for a nice break in a stream of unpleasantness. The addition to Frank and Danny really was a joyful change of pace.
I could feel Jessie's despair and anxiety over Tanks disappearance and fate throughout the story. The bond between the two is palpable and wonderful. More people should feel as close to their "pets", as well as to their family and children. So much of the news nowadays is how disposable life is and how it is valued less in less and replaced by greed, fear and ignorance, as well as just plain cruelty. This is reflected in the book as well.
Oh yeah, Maxie McNabb makes an appearance in this book as well! And the return of an old friend of Jessie's!
No author on the crime fiction scene brings the beauty, mystery, majesty, and danger of the Alaskan frontier mor vibrantly alive than critically acclaimed award winner Sue Henry. Now she takes us due north once more tothis rugged land that famed "musher" and sometime sleuth Jessie Arnold calls home---a breathtaking world where the summers are brief and winters, like death, are cold and long.
With August drawing to a close, Jessie Arnold is feeling empty. Not even the return of a friend can lessen her disappointment over having to miss the approaching Alaskan dogsled racing season because of her recent knee surger. But a request to help man the Iditarod booth at the Alaska State Fair is a godsend, something that keeps Jessie involved and happy...until a corpse turns up on the fairgrounds.
The murder is an expecially brutal one: a small-time hoodlum dispatched by a double-blade axe blow to the skull. Though she has already seen too much death in her lifetime, Jessie becomes a participant in the proceedings when her beloved lead sled dog, Tank, vanishes. Angry and sick with worry, she sets out to find him and unwittingly discovers connections that link Tank's disappearance to the murder and a recent theft in bizarre and disturbing ways.
Friends new and old are soon involved as well. Musher Lynn Ehlers, the parents of a local boy, and state troopers are plunged into a desperate and harrowing search that leads them across lush forested valleys, up silent, forbidding mountains, and into Alaska's darkest heart. Because, suddenly, a sled dog is not the only missing player in this drama. Under alarming circumstances, Jessie Arnold has also vanished.
Quotes:
p.11
From somewhere close a raven called from high above her head but, though she carefully inspected the treetops, remained a disembodied sound. Three times it broke the stillness of the woods with its ragged croak before taking flight, a soaring black silhouette against the thin cloud cover of the sky. Hearing the raven reminded Jessie that, according to legend, this trickster of the northern world had once had a lovely singing voice and pure white feathers but had lost them both in flames cast by an angry magician from whom it had craftily stolen the sun, moon, and stars. The heat had charred it black and left it with only the scorched croak; one of the many raven tales that always made her smile.
p. 11
For over an hour, the three enjoyed the freedom of the woods. Slowly the overcast cleared and sunshine brightened and warmed the morning with long shafts of light that splashed down through the canopy of the branches. Jessie's mood lifted, and she found herself humming in wordless appreciation of the world around her. It was good sometimes to wander slowly along and notice the many small things that would soon be buried in snow. On a sled, behind a dog team, they all vanished in a blur of speed. Fall was her favorite season, and it was pleasat to have time to enjoy it, even if that gratification was the result of losing her usual training runs.
p. 48
....We learn guilt early, at our mother's knee, so doing what is expected of us is houw we tend to fit into society with the least amount of conflict. But I thought of all the things in my life that I'd done because they were expected of me, and the mental pile of shoulds and ought-tos grew until it was a mountain compared to my want-tos. Should and ought-to was what go t me pigeonholed in that unlockable room in the first place, wasn't it? All at once it seemed insufferable. I'd escaped successfully and made it to the fair. So I decided, for once, to do what I wanted. Therefore I didn't go back."
p. 62
...I had decided that I valued my freedom more than my dignity. What is dignity anyway but a facade for others? When you're by yourself it matters very little. Think about the way you behave when you're alone compared to your public persona. Besides, the more you enjoy living freely, the less you need dignity as a shield, because you stop making assuptions about what others may thing of you.
p.100
The black alpaca had been recently sheared, escept for its tail and the top of its head. The other had been left fluffy with white fleece so soft it seemed unreal when Jessie put a hand between the bars of the pen to touch it. The animal had a shaggy fringe of black on top of its head that hung down in front, almost obscuring its vision. But it was the huge eyes of the animals that attracted her. With no definition between pupil, iris, or sclera, they were so completely dark that i t ws difficult to tell where the alpacas were looking. Framed with incredibly long lashes, their eyes reminded Jessie of still pools of water that gleamed with reflections on the surface but kept the secrets of their depths. So calm and slow-moving they seemed almost sleepy, the two animals stood staring into the distance beyond those who stopped to admire them, but she had a feeling that their enigmatic liquid eyes missed very little of what went on around them.
I really enjoyed this book. There were moments of humor thrown in here and there that it made for a nice break in a stream of unpleasantness. The addition to Frank and Danny really was a joyful change of pace.
I could feel Jessie's despair and anxiety over Tanks disappearance and fate throughout the story. The bond between the two is palpable and wonderful. More people should feel as close to their "pets", as well as to their family and children. So much of the news nowadays is how disposable life is and how it is valued less in less and replaced by greed, fear and ignorance, as well as just plain cruelty. This is reflected in the book as well.
Oh yeah, Maxie McNabb makes an appearance in this book as well! And the return of an old friend of Jessie's!
Monday, June 16, 2008
2008 Tony Awards-my take on it
I loved the show, it's the best in years! Finally we get to see more of the plays and musicals!
I do have disagreements with other reviewers of awards shows, such as the one from Yahoo below. I personally get really pissed when the music starts playing during the acceptance/thank you speeches. I WANT TO HEAR THE SPEECHES! Then you can see who they are really. Yes they should keep the speeches brief, but sometimes the pure emotion of the moment is disrupted when that music starts. And it is all to appease the idiot critics who believe that the artists shouldn't be allowed to speak. Well, they have worked hard for years to finally acheive this prize, and unlike the Oscars and the Grammy's (what a waste of airspace), these artists rarely get the praise and the kudos for the public to see. They usually are not well known to the general public. Not like the other two shows mentioned.
So if the winners want to talk, let them. If the show runs long, who gives a sh*t.
Now to the positive moments. I loved seeing the performances, I missed them. I don't get to go to shows, none nearby. Even if some were near, probably couldn't afford it, and probably wouldn't be able to comfortable sit thru the shows. I would love to see these (all productions) archived on dvd and available for purchase from the public. Some are, but all should be.
But I do have to admit that the opening number from The Lion King really did me in, and set the tone for the show. Such emotion and heartfelt performances!
Bravo! Broadway! Keep it up and spread it around!
I do have disagreements with other reviewers of awards shows, such as the one from Yahoo below. I personally get really pissed when the music starts playing during the acceptance/thank you speeches. I WANT TO HEAR THE SPEECHES! Then you can see who they are really. Yes they should keep the speeches brief, but sometimes the pure emotion of the moment is disrupted when that music starts. And it is all to appease the idiot critics who believe that the artists shouldn't be allowed to speak. Well, they have worked hard for years to finally acheive this prize, and unlike the Oscars and the Grammy's (what a waste of airspace), these artists rarely get the praise and the kudos for the public to see. They usually are not well known to the general public. Not like the other two shows mentioned.
So if the winners want to talk, let them. If the show runs long, who gives a sh*t.
Now to the positive moments. I loved seeing the performances, I missed them. I don't get to go to shows, none nearby. Even if some were near, probably couldn't afford it, and probably wouldn't be able to comfortable sit thru the shows. I would love to see these (all productions) archived on dvd and available for purchase from the public. Some are, but all should be.
But I do have to admit that the opening number from The Lion King really did me in, and set the tone for the show. Such emotion and heartfelt performances!
Bravo! Broadway! Keep it up and spread it around!
The 2008 Tonys opt for more entertainment, not thank yous By MICHAEL KUCHWARA, AP Drama Writer
The 2008 Tonys opt for more entertainment, not thank yous
By MICHAEL KUCHWARA, AP Drama Writer
Did the 2008 Tony Awards take a cue from the Grammys?
From its opening moments, featuring a scene from Disney's "The Lion King" to its final minutes, when the soon-to-close "Rent" sang out, entertainment took a larger chunk than usual out of Sunday's three-hour CBS telecast.
It was sort of like the Grammys, which gives out scores of prizes each year, but only a dozen or less make it to prime time — between musical performances — and, thankfully, with a minimum of thank yous from emotional winners clutching little sheets of paper containing the names of people they wanted to remember.
But the change didn't seem to make much difference in the ratings. The Tonys were watched by an estimated 6.19 million viewers, according to a preliminary Nielsen Media Research estimate released Monday. If those numbers hold (final numbers arrive Tuesday), it will be the least-watched Tonys ever, by a narrow margin. Last year, the figure was 6.22 million.
CBS pointed out that the household estimate was up 5 percent over last year, meaning the awards were watched in more houses, but more people were watching alone. The network also noted that the awards were competing with the U.S. Open golf tournament and the NBA finals for portions of the telecast.
For the record, "In the Heights," a lively look at the Latino immigrant experience in New York's Washington Heights, was named best musical, and "August: Osage County," Tracy Letts' blistering saga of family dysfunction, was picked as best play. Yet it was a lavish revival of "South Pacific," the venerable Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, that took the most Tonys — seven.
None of the awards was unexpected. Still, the entertainment factor couldn't have been higher, particularly with Whoopi Goldberg as a game, personable host who flew, roller-skated and even dressed up as a crab from "The Little Mermaid" — all the while keeping a sense of humor. And she wasn't bad either, introducing the four nominated plays, which usually get little attention during a show tailor-made for musical numbers.
"I thought the show was a complete success — celebrating the season along with some long-running hits," said "Hairspray" producer Margo Lion. "But we didn't lose the excitement and the degree of suspense that goes along with the awards."
The surprise factor happened even though 11 of the 26 competitive awards were given off-camera. They were celebrated in the hour preceding the telecast but available on the Tony Awards Web site. They included all the design prizes plus awards for play-revival ("Boeing-Boeing"), choreography (Andy Blankenbuehler, "In the Heights") and book of a musical (Stew, "Passing Strange").
And, in a Tony first, the nationally televised program included scenes — very brief, to be sure — of several new musicals that were not blessed with best-musical nominations but just might be known to audiences who have never been to Broadway. We're talking Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein" and Disney's "Little Mermaid" — two titles that transcend New York theater.
But one hopes viewers came away with an awareness that there were new, exciting voices on Broadway, too, most prominently Lin-Manuel Miranda, the composer of "In the Heights," and Stew, the composer of "Passing Strange."
___
AP Television Writer David Bauder contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
By MICHAEL KUCHWARA, AP Drama Writer
Did the 2008 Tony Awards take a cue from the Grammys?
From its opening moments, featuring a scene from Disney's "The Lion King" to its final minutes, when the soon-to-close "Rent" sang out, entertainment took a larger chunk than usual out of Sunday's three-hour CBS telecast.
It was sort of like the Grammys, which gives out scores of prizes each year, but only a dozen or less make it to prime time — between musical performances — and, thankfully, with a minimum of thank yous from emotional winners clutching little sheets of paper containing the names of people they wanted to remember.
But the change didn't seem to make much difference in the ratings. The Tonys were watched by an estimated 6.19 million viewers, according to a preliminary Nielsen Media Research estimate released Monday. If those numbers hold (final numbers arrive Tuesday), it will be the least-watched Tonys ever, by a narrow margin. Last year, the figure was 6.22 million.
CBS pointed out that the household estimate was up 5 percent over last year, meaning the awards were watched in more houses, but more people were watching alone. The network also noted that the awards were competing with the U.S. Open golf tournament and the NBA finals for portions of the telecast.
For the record, "In the Heights," a lively look at the Latino immigrant experience in New York's Washington Heights, was named best musical, and "August: Osage County," Tracy Letts' blistering saga of family dysfunction, was picked as best play. Yet it was a lavish revival of "South Pacific," the venerable Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, that took the most Tonys — seven.
None of the awards was unexpected. Still, the entertainment factor couldn't have been higher, particularly with Whoopi Goldberg as a game, personable host who flew, roller-skated and even dressed up as a crab from "The Little Mermaid" — all the while keeping a sense of humor. And she wasn't bad either, introducing the four nominated plays, which usually get little attention during a show tailor-made for musical numbers.
"I thought the show was a complete success — celebrating the season along with some long-running hits," said "Hairspray" producer Margo Lion. "But we didn't lose the excitement and the degree of suspense that goes along with the awards."
The surprise factor happened even though 11 of the 26 competitive awards were given off-camera. They were celebrated in the hour preceding the telecast but available on the Tony Awards Web site. They included all the design prizes plus awards for play-revival ("Boeing-Boeing"), choreography (Andy Blankenbuehler, "In the Heights") and book of a musical (Stew, "Passing Strange").
And, in a Tony first, the nationally televised program included scenes — very brief, to be sure — of several new musicals that were not blessed with best-musical nominations but just might be known to audiences who have never been to Broadway. We're talking Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein" and Disney's "Little Mermaid" — two titles that transcend New York theater.
But one hopes viewers came away with an awareness that there were new, exciting voices on Broadway, too, most prominently Lin-Manuel Miranda, the composer of "In the Heights," and Stew, the composer of "Passing Strange."
___
AP Television Writer David Bauder contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Sue Henry books
The End of The Road: A Maxie and Stretch Mystery by Sue Henry (Hardcover - April 7, 2009)
Degrees of Separation: A Jessie Arnold Mystery (Jessie Arnold Mysteries) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - April 1, 2008)
Product Description
Champion musher Jessie Arnold has been out of racing for a number of years, ever since she incurred a devastating knee injury. Now she's ready to get back into shape for this year's Iditarod. While taking her team on a practice run down a local trail she takes a snowy bump that's never been there before. It turns out to be a snow-shrouded body. Now, Jessie and her boyfriend, Alaska State Trooper Alex Jensen, are back chasing criminals. And the hunt is on for the killer of a supposed earthquake victim-whose death turns out to actually be a murder.
The Refuge: A Maxine and Stretch Mystery (Maxine and Stretch Mysteries) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - April 3, 2007)(Paperback - Mar 4, 2008)
From Publishers Weekly
At the start of Henry's intriguing third mystery to feature Maxie McNabb (after 2006's The Tooth of Time), the 64-year-old Alaskan leaves home—and her mini-dachshund Stretch—to help a widowed, injured acquaintance, Karen Parker Bailey, in Hawaii. Hobbling on crutches, Karen needs Maxie's assistance packing up to move back to Alaska, but Maxie's reluctant good Samaritan work turns hazardous: the first night a prowler almost breaks in, the next day Karen's plumbing is sabotaged. Maxie senses Karen is concealing something when she overhears a whispered phone call.
Maxie hires Jerry, the conveniently just-fired plumber's assistant, to help with the move. When Karen goes on ahead to Alaska, Maxie rents an RV so she can tour the island with Jerry until their flight home. But the real danger closes in as they travel to a park, the Refuge, which, of course, turns out to be anything but. Despite a touch of cuteness, Maxie is good company, and she teams with Jerry to entertaining effect.
(Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The Tooth of Time: A Maxie And Stretch Mystery by Sue Henry (Hardcover - Aug 2006)(Paperback - April 3, 2007)
From Publishers Weekly
In Henry's agreeable second outing for Maxie McNabb (after 2004's The Serpent's Trail), the 63-year-old Alaskan with the insatiable curiosity continues to explore the lower 48 in her "Minnie Winnie," accompanied only by her feisty mini-dachshund, Stretch. Her travels take her to Taos, N.Mex., where she meets an old friend from Alaska, makes new friends among the weavers of Taos and gets acquainted with a woman who may or may not have attempted suicide, Shirley Morgan. When Shirley disappears, Maxie finds herself in danger and flees Taos.
The resilient and resourceful Maxie soon returns to Taos to face the danger and deal with a deadly and unsuspected killer. Maxie's cherished independence and her willingness to seek out new experiences alone and single should resonate with fans of cozy and atmospheric mysteries, though so far this series lacks the lovingly detailed descriptions of the environment that characterize Henry's Jessie Arnold books (Murder at Five Finger Light, etc.).
(Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Murder at Five Finger Light: A Jessie Arnold Mystery (Alaska Mysteries) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - April 5, 2005)(Paperback - Mar 7, 2006)
From Booklist
At loose ends because she is unable to race her dogs this season due to an injury, Jessie Arnold heads to Five Finger Light Island to help friends restore an old lighthouse. On the way to the island, Jessie meets Karen Emerson, who is on the run from a persistent stalker, and invites her along on the trip. Once on the island, Jessie's idyllic getaway turns deadly as a body is found, a woman disappears, and an extensive search of the tiny island fails to find her. Jessie and her companions realize they are on their own when they discover that all means of communicating with the outside world are either missing or destroyed.
Alternating chapters from Jessie's and the stalker's points of view keep motives hidden and readers guessing as the plot moves briskly along. The unspoiled Alaskan setting, and Jessie and her boyfriend Alex's somewhat uneasy relationship, add to this eleventh in the series.
Sue O'BrienCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
The Serpents Trail: A Maxie and Stretch Mystery by Sue Henry (Hardcover - April 6, 2004)(Paperback - Mar 1, 2005)
From Publishers Weekly
Devotees of Henry's Alaska mysteries will be delighted to see 63-year-old Maxine "Maxie" McNabb, the Winnebago-driving, free-spirited widow introduced in Dead North (2001), starring in this gentle whodunit, the first of a new series.
Summoned from Alaska to Grand Junction, Colo., to the bedside of her ailing old friend Sarah Nunamaker, Maxie and her adorable mini-dachshund Stretch wheel in just in the nick of time, or do they? Sarah's final words to Maxie seem urgent, but leave her little to go on in order to investigate the wrongs to which Sarah mysteriously alludes. Much to the dismay of Alan, Sarah's adopted son, Maxie discovers she's been appointed Sarah's executor. She must also contend with a break-in at Sarah's home and her late friend's penchant for secret hiding places and secrets in general.
Then Ed Norris, a college mate of Maxie and Sarah, drops a real bombshell when he reveals the identities of Alan's biological parents. A box of photos, an address on a card and a surprising stranger later leadsor misleads Maxie and Stretch to Salt Lake City, where Maxie faces even greater dangers.
Cozy crime fans of a certain age will love to live vicariously through Maxie and Stretch in what promises to be a long and popular run of adventures.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Death Trap: An Alaska Mystery (Henry, Sue) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - Jun 17, 2003)(Mass Market Paperback - April 27, 2004)
From Publishers Weekly
Anthony and Macavity Award winner Henry underutilizes her trademark Alaskan setting in her 10th Jessie Arnold mystery (after 2002's Cold Company).
Told in flashbacks by the famed musher and a number of her friends and allies, the novel rarely achieves her usual level of suspense. Sitting around Jessie's cabin, the group recalls and recounts where they were, what they did and what they knew as this story of murder, dognapping and kidnapping unfolds against the backdrop of the Alaska State Fair. Despite the absence of the author's customary depiction of the magnificent and treacherous Alaskan environment, readers will welcome the return of a former suitor and the introduction of 10-year-old Danny Tabor and 82-year-old Frank Monroe.
The spunky youngster and the verbose octogenarian form an unlikely but appealing alliance as they each confront the limitations placed on them by age. They also have to match wits with their pursuers when they unwittingly become possessors of important information. For Jessie, still recovering from knee surgery, this adventure tests her strength of will as she fights to find and rescue her lead dog and boon companion, Tank.
Established fans should enjoy this tale, but others should start with another book in the series.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Cold Company (Alaska Mysteries) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - Jun 2003)(Mass Market Paperback - May 27, 2003)
From Publishers Weekly
Alaskan musher Jessie Arnold has certainly used up more than nine lives even before the start of this ninth solid adventure in a series that has won both Anthony and Macavity awards. Fiercely independent and self-reliant to a fault, Jessie must confront inner fears as well as outside dangers as she sets about rebuilding her home (gutted in 2000's Beneath the Ashes) and restructuring her life (after a breakup that occurred in the same novel).
First a skeleton turns up in the excavation of her new cabin site; then a possible link is found to murders committed decades earlier by Alaska's most notorious serial killer, Robert Hansen. Hansen's victims, some of whom were never found, had been buried along the nearby Knik River. Soon not only the cabin construction crew but forensic and police investigators, plus a relative of one of Hansen's victims still searching for answers, are prowling the wild and remote Knik Road that leads to Jesse's property. As murders new and old begin to unfold, Jesse has to learn to rely on others as well as on her own substantial survival skills to surmount human and natural pitfalls.
One of the hallmarks of Henry's series is the beautiful and rugged Alaskan landscape, and she has never used it more effectively than she does here, as spring sets in motion new discoveries. And Jesse's continuing voyage of self-discovery should thrill old fans as well as expand her growing audience in the lower 48.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Dead North (Alaska Mysteries) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - May 2002)(Mass Market Paperback - April 30, 2002)
From Publishers Weekly
This is one of Henry's best if not the best because characters, not a dog team, drive the plot. Waiting to replace her cabin (burned down in Beneath the Ashes; 2000), Jessie Arnold, with her beloved lead husky, Tank, agrees to pick up her contractor's new Winnebago in Idaho and drive it up the gloriously scenic Alaska Highway. Into the idyllic trip pops Patrick Cutler, a runaway teenager from Cody, Wyo.
Without the usual musher gang, Henry creates some lively new characters: "Maxie" McNabb, an independent, adventurous widow who befriends Jessie; elderly Mr. Dalton, Patrick's wily Cody neighbor; and tough long-distance trucker Butch Stringer. Jessie and Maxie know there are holes in Patrick's story, but they agree to help him reach a friend in Fairbanks, putting them on a collision course with his violent stepfather, "Mack" McMurdock, who killed Patrick's mother and is now after him. William Webster, a RCMP detective; Daniel Loomis, a Cody homicide cop; and two of Patrick's high school friends are also pursuing him, all for different reasons.
The talented Henry shows her love of the Alaskan wilderness with vivid descriptions of its spectacular beauty, using it as the backdrop for several heart-stopping chases. A clever ending leaves some strings dangling, while an excellent map helps keep the reader on track.
(July 2)Forecast: Henry's first novel, Murder on the Iditarod Trail, won the Anthony and Macavity awards. This book, with its stunning locale, will appeal to armchair travelers and readers interested in Alaska, as well as Henry's usual fans.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Beneath the Ashes: An Alaska Mystery (Alaska Mysteries) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - Jul 25, 2000)(Mass Market Paperback - May 29, 2001)
From Publishers Weekly
The identity of the arsonist plaguing musher Jessie Arnold comes as no surprise in her seventh outing, but Anthony and Macavity winner Henry provides plenty of unexpected twists and turns along the way. Right before Jessie's favorite bar burns down, killing an unknown man inside, she gets a call from an old acquaintance and former neighbor, Anne Holman, now living in Colorado. Anne asks Jessie to help her travel to the log cabin she once shared with her physically abusive husband, Greg. Knowing this entails a dog-sled trip into the wilderness, but feeling sorry for Anne, Jessie agrees.
As they prepare for their trip, however, Mike Tatum, the arson investigator looking into the bar fire, tells Jessie that Anne, who's been strangely secretive, was a suspect in an arson case years before in which the now-identified victim played a part. Anne swears Tatum is obsessed with proving her guilty, which makes sense to Jessie, who can't stand the man. Later, though, Jessie has to wonder when she and Anne arrive at their destination and find the charred remains of Anne's former home. Anne is sure that Greg has burned down the cabin since her last visit.
Back home, when someone torches the cabin Jessie built with her own hands, she can't figure out who her enemy really is A Tatum, whom she enraged by defending Anne; Anne herself; or Greg, who's followed his wife to Alaska. Again, Henry's lyrical descriptions of the Alaskan wilderness make up for a transparent plot and a melodramatic finale.
(July) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Murder on the Yukon Quest:: An Alaska Mystery (Alaska Mysteries) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - Jul 6, 1999)(Mass Market Paperback - May 2, 2000)
From Publishers Weekly
Alaska's spectacular, dangerous wilderness forms the background to Henry's engaging, if overplotted, sixth novel (after Deadfall). Professional musher Jessie Arnold is in peril, this time on the Yukon Quest, "the toughest dogsled race in the world," which runs over 1000 miles from Whitehorse, Canada, to Fairbanks, Alaska. Early in the race, novice musher Debbie Todd is captured and held for $200,000 ransom. The kidnappers demand that Debbie's frantic stepfather give Jessie the money for delivery during the race, warning them both that Debbie will die if they inform the police. But Jessie secretly notifies her good friend, Inspector Charles Delafosse, before she tackles the race's most demanding leg. In a climactic finish, Jessie almost loses her life when she confronts the criminals on American Summit during a blinding blizzard. Throughout this turmoil, Jessie is also trying to sort out her feelings for her lover, State Trooper Alex Jensen, who's at his father's funeral in Idaho.
Henry decorates her novel with glorious evocations of Alaska, believable characters, interesting mushing lore and deft explanations of dogsledding mechanics. But the story suffers from a thin plot that leans on obvious clues and unlikely coincidences. Nonetheless, dog lovers will enjoy it, as will those willing to forgive the faults in construction in favor of some beautiful writing.
Agent, Dominick Abel. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Deadfall:: An Alaska Mystery (Alex Jensen Alaska Mysteries) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - Aug 1, 1998)(Mass Market Paperback - Jul 1, 1999)
From Publishers Weekly
Iditarod musher Jessie Arnold is the focus of unwanted attention in the engrossing fifth Alaska mystery following Death Takes Passage (1997), as she becomes the target of an unknown stalker. Annoying phone calls with silence answering her hellos and threatening messages received in the mail quickly escalate to attacks on her beloved sled dogs and a near fatal sabotage attempt.
Alaska State trooper Alex Jensen, Jessie's boyfriend, convinces her to abandon their home in Knik and go to ground in a safe haven while he and his colleagues try to identify and stop the stalker. Jessie chooses an (almost) abandoned island in Kachemak Bay as her refuge, taking with her only her lead dog, Tank. Swinging back and forth between the stalker's attempts to locate Jessie and Alex's efforts to find the stalker, Henry ratchets the suspense steadily and unnervingly.
The beautiful and treacherous Alaskan environment is used to wonderful effect as wild storms batter Jessie's island retreat. While trying to cope with the immediate threats posed by the unknown stalker, Jessie also tries to come to grips with her deepening relationship with Alex and the threat to her vaunted independence. This tale, with its riveting suspense, wildly beautiful and dangerous setting and gutsy heroine, should bring this already notable series even further attention.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Death Takes Passage: An Alex Jensen Alaska Mystery (Alex Jensen Alaska Mysteries) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - Aug 1997)
From School Library Journal
YA. Alaska State Trooper Alex Jensen and his friend Jessie are onboard the ship Spirit of '98 as it reenacts a historic moment from the Klondike Gold Rush. However, the fact that it is not truly a vacation becomes obvious as the officer must deal with a series of severe crimes: robberies, a disappearance, murder, major theft, and a bomb. The challenges intensify before any of the mysteries are fully solved. Historical and geographical details are skillfully woven into the plot. The map and diagram help to identify the location of each scene. The cover art of a large glacier looming over the ship is symbolic of the intensity of the climax.?Claudia Moore, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VACopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Alaska state trooper Alex Jensen and girlfriend Jessie Arnold (Sleeping Lady, LJ 8/96) cruise down the Inside Passage as part of the 100th anniversary of the Klondike Gold Rush. When robbery and death strike the ship, Alex must investigate. More good stuff.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
To celebrate the Alaskan gold rush centennial, the Spirit of '98, a 200-foot-long passenger vessel, is sailing the Inside Passage to Seattle with a ton of gold on board. State Trooper Alex Jensen and his girlfriend, Jessie, are along as representatives of the state. But nearby, shadowy figures are pirating a sailboat, and mutineers have infiltrated the passengers and crew. Alex and Jessie discover thefts and two murders; then they realize these crimes are just a prelude to the main event: someone intends to steal the gold.
In this fourth Alex Jensen mystery, Henry refreshingly blends classic mystery devices (a missing passenger, double identities, and locked rooms) with frontier and nautical history and the great beauty of Alaskan glaciers, mountains, night skies, and wildlife. In addition, Henry's enjoyable, well-paced novel displays little gratuitous violence and contains an intriguing mix of real and fictional characters. Death Takes Passage does for Alaska what Hunt for Red October did for submarines.
John Rowen
From Kirkus Reviews
Alaska State Trooper Alex Jensen returns to the past in even more ways than the one suggested by the retro title (cf. Death on the Nile, etc., etc.) when he's assigned to the Spirit of '98's Inside Passage cruise commemorating the centennial of the Alaskan Gold Rush. There'll be tours of historic local sites, period theatricals hearkening back to the 1890s, and, just for good measure, the ceremonial transporting of a ton of gold in bars, flakes, and dust. Naturally, all that gold draws the attention of a mysterious shipboard menace who pilfers golden goodies from selected passengers' staterooms, tosses suspiciously reticent Spirit staffer Julie Morrison overboard, and aims, with the help of some outside muscle, to catch the ship napping while it's isolated from radio contact in the Grenville Channel.
How serious are these guys? A couple of minor-league confederates have already stolen a sailboat and dispatched the luckless owner (the discovery of the floating corpse by the Spirit crew is only the most convenient of several whopping coincidences), and the ringleaders intend to blow up the Spirit as soon as they've off- loaded the swag.
Despite a boatload of nondescript suspects who remain as remote as the majestic natural backdrops, Henry (Sleeping Lady, 1996, etc.) keeps the intrigue swirling and the tension mounting with a program of threats, mysteries, and great scenery as varied as anything in a tour director's bag of tricks, in what may be her best outing yet.
(First printing of 25,000; author tour)
-- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Product Description
History is repeating itself on hundred years later on Alaska's breathtaking Inside Passage. Re-creating the famous Voyage of 1897, the Spirit of '98 is setting sail from Skagway, Alaska, en route to Seattle, Washington, carrying two tons of Yukon gold. Alaska State Trooper Alex Jensen and his love, famous female "musher" Jessie Arnold, are among the excited participants. The Grim Reaper is a passenger as well.
Dressed in period coustoume, Gold Rush buff Alex Jensen is only too happy to be representing the Troopers on this historic journey through a giant maze of scenic straits, harbors, and inlets. But the strange disappearance -- and probable death -- of a crew member pulls Alex rudely back to the present. As the only law officer in the vicinity, it is now his duty to unravel a twisted skein of lies, greed, and lethal shipboard secrets -- before the Spirit's fateful encounter with murderers abroad a stolen ketch writes a grim new chapter in Alaska's history.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Sleeping Lady: An Alex Jensen Mystery by Sue Henry (Hardcover - Sep 1996)(Mass Market Paperback - May 1, 1997)
From Publishers Weekly
Love of the Alaska wilderness, a hallmark of Henry's previous books (Termination Dust), shines throughout this hymn to black bears and bush pilots. Rochelle Lewis is told that her missing husband's plane has been located during the spring thaw near Mt. Susitna, known as The Sleeping Lady.
Her relief is soured when she learns that his whereabouts are still unaccounted for, but that a woman's body was found in the cockpit. Chelle flies immediately to the site only to find Alaska State Trooper Jensen investigating what is clearly a matter of foul play: the plane had been shot down and the unidentified woman had been fatally beaten before the crash. Where had Norm Lewis been taking this woman? And why hadn't he told his wife about the unscheduled charter flight? As Jensen, the medical examiner and other officials try to identify the woman and track the shooter, Chelle begins to wake from her winterlong paralysis occasioned by her husband's disappearance. But after she discovers clues to his fateful trip, she is stalked by those who want Norm's purpose hidden.
While the thin plot may disappoint some mystery traditionalists, Henry's textured characterization, her attentive depiction of the wilderness area and a brown bear's spring awakening and her indignation at hunting violations will engage most armchair travelers in the lower 48.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Termination Dust by Sue Henry (Hardcover - May 1995)(Mass Market Paperback - May 1, 1996)
From Publishers Weekly
Overplotted and tamer than Henry's award-winning Murder on the Iditarod Trail, this sequel takes its title from the Alaska Gold Rush, when "termination dust" meant the first snowfall of the season, signaling the end of the year's prospecting. Alaska state trooper Alex Jensen is in Canada working with Royal Canadian Mounted Police Inspector Charles "Del" Delafosse when a retired Alaskan senator Warren Russell is found murdered.
Not far off, the police come across Colorado canoeist Jim Hampton, who appears hungover and dazed but denies shooting Russell and insists that he himself was attacked by two others who stole his gear, which has been mysteriously returned, along with a skull and some old bones Hampton had discovered upriver. As Del investigates the murder, Jensen reads the Gold Rush journal Hampton found near the bones. Henry crosscuts the account of the murder investigation with entries from the journal, which is offered in full at the end of the novel. The two plot threads remain tenuously connected, despite the Yukon blizzard that occurs in each.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Murder on the Iditarod Trail by Sue Henry (Hardcover - Mar 1991)(Mass Market Paperback - Jan 1, 2001)
From Publishers Weekly
In this enthralling debut mystery, someone is killing the mushers (dog sled racers) competing in Alaska's internationally famous Iditarod--a 1000-mile race from Anchorage to Nome. The first victim's face is ripped off during a freak accident. Later, state trooper Sgt. Alex Jensen, assigned to the routine investigation of an apparently accidental death, learns that the deceased had been drugged and unconscious moments before his sled crashed. As the two-week run in sub-zero cold continues, the second victim is crushed by a rigged dog sled and the third is eaten alive by doped huskies.
The $250,000 prize money makes Jensen consider all the competing mushers as suspects; however, as more fall prey to mysterious injuries, he realizes that the killer is after more than cash. While the list of suspects dwindles, pitiless Arctic snowstorms immobilize Jensen's search and leave the surviving racers at the mercy of the killer. Henry provides suspense and excitement in this paean to a great sporting event and to the powerful Alaskan landscape.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Degrees of Separation: A Jessie Arnold Mystery (Jessie Arnold Mysteries) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - April 1, 2008)
Product Description
Champion musher Jessie Arnold has been out of racing for a number of years, ever since she incurred a devastating knee injury. Now she's ready to get back into shape for this year's Iditarod. While taking her team on a practice run down a local trail she takes a snowy bump that's never been there before. It turns out to be a snow-shrouded body. Now, Jessie and her boyfriend, Alaska State Trooper Alex Jensen, are back chasing criminals. And the hunt is on for the killer of a supposed earthquake victim-whose death turns out to actually be a murder.
The Refuge: A Maxine and Stretch Mystery (Maxine and Stretch Mysteries) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - April 3, 2007)(Paperback - Mar 4, 2008)
From Publishers Weekly
At the start of Henry's intriguing third mystery to feature Maxie McNabb (after 2006's The Tooth of Time), the 64-year-old Alaskan leaves home—and her mini-dachshund Stretch—to help a widowed, injured acquaintance, Karen Parker Bailey, in Hawaii. Hobbling on crutches, Karen needs Maxie's assistance packing up to move back to Alaska, but Maxie's reluctant good Samaritan work turns hazardous: the first night a prowler almost breaks in, the next day Karen's plumbing is sabotaged. Maxie senses Karen is concealing something when she overhears a whispered phone call.
Maxie hires Jerry, the conveniently just-fired plumber's assistant, to help with the move. When Karen goes on ahead to Alaska, Maxie rents an RV so she can tour the island with Jerry until their flight home. But the real danger closes in as they travel to a park, the Refuge, which, of course, turns out to be anything but. Despite a touch of cuteness, Maxie is good company, and she teams with Jerry to entertaining effect.
(Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The Tooth of Time: A Maxie And Stretch Mystery by Sue Henry (Hardcover - Aug 2006)(Paperback - April 3, 2007)
From Publishers Weekly
In Henry's agreeable second outing for Maxie McNabb (after 2004's The Serpent's Trail), the 63-year-old Alaskan with the insatiable curiosity continues to explore the lower 48 in her "Minnie Winnie," accompanied only by her feisty mini-dachshund, Stretch. Her travels take her to Taos, N.Mex., where she meets an old friend from Alaska, makes new friends among the weavers of Taos and gets acquainted with a woman who may or may not have attempted suicide, Shirley Morgan. When Shirley disappears, Maxie finds herself in danger and flees Taos.
The resilient and resourceful Maxie soon returns to Taos to face the danger and deal with a deadly and unsuspected killer. Maxie's cherished independence and her willingness to seek out new experiences alone and single should resonate with fans of cozy and atmospheric mysteries, though so far this series lacks the lovingly detailed descriptions of the environment that characterize Henry's Jessie Arnold books (Murder at Five Finger Light, etc.).
(Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Murder at Five Finger Light: A Jessie Arnold Mystery (Alaska Mysteries) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - April 5, 2005)(Paperback - Mar 7, 2006)
From Booklist
At loose ends because she is unable to race her dogs this season due to an injury, Jessie Arnold heads to Five Finger Light Island to help friends restore an old lighthouse. On the way to the island, Jessie meets Karen Emerson, who is on the run from a persistent stalker, and invites her along on the trip. Once on the island, Jessie's idyllic getaway turns deadly as a body is found, a woman disappears, and an extensive search of the tiny island fails to find her. Jessie and her companions realize they are on their own when they discover that all means of communicating with the outside world are either missing or destroyed.
Alternating chapters from Jessie's and the stalker's points of view keep motives hidden and readers guessing as the plot moves briskly along. The unspoiled Alaskan setting, and Jessie and her boyfriend Alex's somewhat uneasy relationship, add to this eleventh in the series.
Sue O'BrienCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
The Serpents Trail: A Maxie and Stretch Mystery by Sue Henry (Hardcover - April 6, 2004)(Paperback - Mar 1, 2005)
From Publishers Weekly
Devotees of Henry's Alaska mysteries will be delighted to see 63-year-old Maxine "Maxie" McNabb, the Winnebago-driving, free-spirited widow introduced in Dead North (2001), starring in this gentle whodunit, the first of a new series.
Summoned from Alaska to Grand Junction, Colo., to the bedside of her ailing old friend Sarah Nunamaker, Maxie and her adorable mini-dachshund Stretch wheel in just in the nick of time, or do they? Sarah's final words to Maxie seem urgent, but leave her little to go on in order to investigate the wrongs to which Sarah mysteriously alludes. Much to the dismay of Alan, Sarah's adopted son, Maxie discovers she's been appointed Sarah's executor. She must also contend with a break-in at Sarah's home and her late friend's penchant for secret hiding places and secrets in general.
Then Ed Norris, a college mate of Maxie and Sarah, drops a real bombshell when he reveals the identities of Alan's biological parents. A box of photos, an address on a card and a surprising stranger later leadsor misleads Maxie and Stretch to Salt Lake City, where Maxie faces even greater dangers.
Cozy crime fans of a certain age will love to live vicariously through Maxie and Stretch in what promises to be a long and popular run of adventures.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Death Trap: An Alaska Mystery (Henry, Sue) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - Jun 17, 2003)(Mass Market Paperback - April 27, 2004)
From Publishers Weekly
Anthony and Macavity Award winner Henry underutilizes her trademark Alaskan setting in her 10th Jessie Arnold mystery (after 2002's Cold Company).
Told in flashbacks by the famed musher and a number of her friends and allies, the novel rarely achieves her usual level of suspense. Sitting around Jessie's cabin, the group recalls and recounts where they were, what they did and what they knew as this story of murder, dognapping and kidnapping unfolds against the backdrop of the Alaska State Fair. Despite the absence of the author's customary depiction of the magnificent and treacherous Alaskan environment, readers will welcome the return of a former suitor and the introduction of 10-year-old Danny Tabor and 82-year-old Frank Monroe.
The spunky youngster and the verbose octogenarian form an unlikely but appealing alliance as they each confront the limitations placed on them by age. They also have to match wits with their pursuers when they unwittingly become possessors of important information. For Jessie, still recovering from knee surgery, this adventure tests her strength of will as she fights to find and rescue her lead dog and boon companion, Tank.
Established fans should enjoy this tale, but others should start with another book in the series.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Cold Company (Alaska Mysteries) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - Jun 2003)(Mass Market Paperback - May 27, 2003)
From Publishers Weekly
Alaskan musher Jessie Arnold has certainly used up more than nine lives even before the start of this ninth solid adventure in a series that has won both Anthony and Macavity awards. Fiercely independent and self-reliant to a fault, Jessie must confront inner fears as well as outside dangers as she sets about rebuilding her home (gutted in 2000's Beneath the Ashes) and restructuring her life (after a breakup that occurred in the same novel).
First a skeleton turns up in the excavation of her new cabin site; then a possible link is found to murders committed decades earlier by Alaska's most notorious serial killer, Robert Hansen. Hansen's victims, some of whom were never found, had been buried along the nearby Knik River. Soon not only the cabin construction crew but forensic and police investigators, plus a relative of one of Hansen's victims still searching for answers, are prowling the wild and remote Knik Road that leads to Jesse's property. As murders new and old begin to unfold, Jesse has to learn to rely on others as well as on her own substantial survival skills to surmount human and natural pitfalls.
One of the hallmarks of Henry's series is the beautiful and rugged Alaskan landscape, and she has never used it more effectively than she does here, as spring sets in motion new discoveries. And Jesse's continuing voyage of self-discovery should thrill old fans as well as expand her growing audience in the lower 48.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Dead North (Alaska Mysteries) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - May 2002)(Mass Market Paperback - April 30, 2002)
From Publishers Weekly
This is one of Henry's best if not the best because characters, not a dog team, drive the plot. Waiting to replace her cabin (burned down in Beneath the Ashes; 2000), Jessie Arnold, with her beloved lead husky, Tank, agrees to pick up her contractor's new Winnebago in Idaho and drive it up the gloriously scenic Alaska Highway. Into the idyllic trip pops Patrick Cutler, a runaway teenager from Cody, Wyo.
Without the usual musher gang, Henry creates some lively new characters: "Maxie" McNabb, an independent, adventurous widow who befriends Jessie; elderly Mr. Dalton, Patrick's wily Cody neighbor; and tough long-distance trucker Butch Stringer. Jessie and Maxie know there are holes in Patrick's story, but they agree to help him reach a friend in Fairbanks, putting them on a collision course with his violent stepfather, "Mack" McMurdock, who killed Patrick's mother and is now after him. William Webster, a RCMP detective; Daniel Loomis, a Cody homicide cop; and two of Patrick's high school friends are also pursuing him, all for different reasons.
The talented Henry shows her love of the Alaskan wilderness with vivid descriptions of its spectacular beauty, using it as the backdrop for several heart-stopping chases. A clever ending leaves some strings dangling, while an excellent map helps keep the reader on track.
(July 2)Forecast: Henry's first novel, Murder on the Iditarod Trail, won the Anthony and Macavity awards. This book, with its stunning locale, will appeal to armchair travelers and readers interested in Alaska, as well as Henry's usual fans.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Beneath the Ashes: An Alaska Mystery (Alaska Mysteries) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - Jul 25, 2000)(Mass Market Paperback - May 29, 2001)
From Publishers Weekly
The identity of the arsonist plaguing musher Jessie Arnold comes as no surprise in her seventh outing, but Anthony and Macavity winner Henry provides plenty of unexpected twists and turns along the way. Right before Jessie's favorite bar burns down, killing an unknown man inside, she gets a call from an old acquaintance and former neighbor, Anne Holman, now living in Colorado. Anne asks Jessie to help her travel to the log cabin she once shared with her physically abusive husband, Greg. Knowing this entails a dog-sled trip into the wilderness, but feeling sorry for Anne, Jessie agrees.
As they prepare for their trip, however, Mike Tatum, the arson investigator looking into the bar fire, tells Jessie that Anne, who's been strangely secretive, was a suspect in an arson case years before in which the now-identified victim played a part. Anne swears Tatum is obsessed with proving her guilty, which makes sense to Jessie, who can't stand the man. Later, though, Jessie has to wonder when she and Anne arrive at their destination and find the charred remains of Anne's former home. Anne is sure that Greg has burned down the cabin since her last visit.
Back home, when someone torches the cabin Jessie built with her own hands, she can't figure out who her enemy really is A Tatum, whom she enraged by defending Anne; Anne herself; or Greg, who's followed his wife to Alaska. Again, Henry's lyrical descriptions of the Alaskan wilderness make up for a transparent plot and a melodramatic finale.
(July) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Murder on the Yukon Quest:: An Alaska Mystery (Alaska Mysteries) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - Jul 6, 1999)(Mass Market Paperback - May 2, 2000)
From Publishers Weekly
Alaska's spectacular, dangerous wilderness forms the background to Henry's engaging, if overplotted, sixth novel (after Deadfall). Professional musher Jessie Arnold is in peril, this time on the Yukon Quest, "the toughest dogsled race in the world," which runs over 1000 miles from Whitehorse, Canada, to Fairbanks, Alaska. Early in the race, novice musher Debbie Todd is captured and held for $200,000 ransom. The kidnappers demand that Debbie's frantic stepfather give Jessie the money for delivery during the race, warning them both that Debbie will die if they inform the police. But Jessie secretly notifies her good friend, Inspector Charles Delafosse, before she tackles the race's most demanding leg. In a climactic finish, Jessie almost loses her life when she confronts the criminals on American Summit during a blinding blizzard. Throughout this turmoil, Jessie is also trying to sort out her feelings for her lover, State Trooper Alex Jensen, who's at his father's funeral in Idaho.
Henry decorates her novel with glorious evocations of Alaska, believable characters, interesting mushing lore and deft explanations of dogsledding mechanics. But the story suffers from a thin plot that leans on obvious clues and unlikely coincidences. Nonetheless, dog lovers will enjoy it, as will those willing to forgive the faults in construction in favor of some beautiful writing.
Agent, Dominick Abel. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Deadfall:: An Alaska Mystery (Alex Jensen Alaska Mysteries) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - Aug 1, 1998)(Mass Market Paperback - Jul 1, 1999)
From Publishers Weekly
Iditarod musher Jessie Arnold is the focus of unwanted attention in the engrossing fifth Alaska mystery following Death Takes Passage (1997), as she becomes the target of an unknown stalker. Annoying phone calls with silence answering her hellos and threatening messages received in the mail quickly escalate to attacks on her beloved sled dogs and a near fatal sabotage attempt.
Alaska State trooper Alex Jensen, Jessie's boyfriend, convinces her to abandon their home in Knik and go to ground in a safe haven while he and his colleagues try to identify and stop the stalker. Jessie chooses an (almost) abandoned island in Kachemak Bay as her refuge, taking with her only her lead dog, Tank. Swinging back and forth between the stalker's attempts to locate Jessie and Alex's efforts to find the stalker, Henry ratchets the suspense steadily and unnervingly.
The beautiful and treacherous Alaskan environment is used to wonderful effect as wild storms batter Jessie's island retreat. While trying to cope with the immediate threats posed by the unknown stalker, Jessie also tries to come to grips with her deepening relationship with Alex and the threat to her vaunted independence. This tale, with its riveting suspense, wildly beautiful and dangerous setting and gutsy heroine, should bring this already notable series even further attention.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Death Takes Passage: An Alex Jensen Alaska Mystery (Alex Jensen Alaska Mysteries) by Sue Henry (Hardcover - Aug 1997)
From School Library Journal
YA. Alaska State Trooper Alex Jensen and his friend Jessie are onboard the ship Spirit of '98 as it reenacts a historic moment from the Klondike Gold Rush. However, the fact that it is not truly a vacation becomes obvious as the officer must deal with a series of severe crimes: robberies, a disappearance, murder, major theft, and a bomb. The challenges intensify before any of the mysteries are fully solved. Historical and geographical details are skillfully woven into the plot. The map and diagram help to identify the location of each scene. The cover art of a large glacier looming over the ship is symbolic of the intensity of the climax.?Claudia Moore, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VACopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Alaska state trooper Alex Jensen and girlfriend Jessie Arnold (Sleeping Lady, LJ 8/96) cruise down the Inside Passage as part of the 100th anniversary of the Klondike Gold Rush. When robbery and death strike the ship, Alex must investigate. More good stuff.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
To celebrate the Alaskan gold rush centennial, the Spirit of '98, a 200-foot-long passenger vessel, is sailing the Inside Passage to Seattle with a ton of gold on board. State Trooper Alex Jensen and his girlfriend, Jessie, are along as representatives of the state. But nearby, shadowy figures are pirating a sailboat, and mutineers have infiltrated the passengers and crew. Alex and Jessie discover thefts and two murders; then they realize these crimes are just a prelude to the main event: someone intends to steal the gold.
In this fourth Alex Jensen mystery, Henry refreshingly blends classic mystery devices (a missing passenger, double identities, and locked rooms) with frontier and nautical history and the great beauty of Alaskan glaciers, mountains, night skies, and wildlife. In addition, Henry's enjoyable, well-paced novel displays little gratuitous violence and contains an intriguing mix of real and fictional characters. Death Takes Passage does for Alaska what Hunt for Red October did for submarines.
John Rowen
From Kirkus Reviews
Alaska State Trooper Alex Jensen returns to the past in even more ways than the one suggested by the retro title (cf. Death on the Nile, etc., etc.) when he's assigned to the Spirit of '98's Inside Passage cruise commemorating the centennial of the Alaskan Gold Rush. There'll be tours of historic local sites, period theatricals hearkening back to the 1890s, and, just for good measure, the ceremonial transporting of a ton of gold in bars, flakes, and dust. Naturally, all that gold draws the attention of a mysterious shipboard menace who pilfers golden goodies from selected passengers' staterooms, tosses suspiciously reticent Spirit staffer Julie Morrison overboard, and aims, with the help of some outside muscle, to catch the ship napping while it's isolated from radio contact in the Grenville Channel.
How serious are these guys? A couple of minor-league confederates have already stolen a sailboat and dispatched the luckless owner (the discovery of the floating corpse by the Spirit crew is only the most convenient of several whopping coincidences), and the ringleaders intend to blow up the Spirit as soon as they've off- loaded the swag.
Despite a boatload of nondescript suspects who remain as remote as the majestic natural backdrops, Henry (Sleeping Lady, 1996, etc.) keeps the intrigue swirling and the tension mounting with a program of threats, mysteries, and great scenery as varied as anything in a tour director's bag of tricks, in what may be her best outing yet.
(First printing of 25,000; author tour)
-- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Product Description
History is repeating itself on hundred years later on Alaska's breathtaking Inside Passage. Re-creating the famous Voyage of 1897, the Spirit of '98 is setting sail from Skagway, Alaska, en route to Seattle, Washington, carrying two tons of Yukon gold. Alaska State Trooper Alex Jensen and his love, famous female "musher" Jessie Arnold, are among the excited participants. The Grim Reaper is a passenger as well.
Dressed in period coustoume, Gold Rush buff Alex Jensen is only too happy to be representing the Troopers on this historic journey through a giant maze of scenic straits, harbors, and inlets. But the strange disappearance -- and probable death -- of a crew member pulls Alex rudely back to the present. As the only law officer in the vicinity, it is now his duty to unravel a twisted skein of lies, greed, and lethal shipboard secrets -- before the Spirit's fateful encounter with murderers abroad a stolen ketch writes a grim new chapter in Alaska's history.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Sleeping Lady: An Alex Jensen Mystery by Sue Henry (Hardcover - Sep 1996)(Mass Market Paperback - May 1, 1997)
From Publishers Weekly
Love of the Alaska wilderness, a hallmark of Henry's previous books (Termination Dust), shines throughout this hymn to black bears and bush pilots. Rochelle Lewis is told that her missing husband's plane has been located during the spring thaw near Mt. Susitna, known as The Sleeping Lady.
Her relief is soured when she learns that his whereabouts are still unaccounted for, but that a woman's body was found in the cockpit. Chelle flies immediately to the site only to find Alaska State Trooper Jensen investigating what is clearly a matter of foul play: the plane had been shot down and the unidentified woman had been fatally beaten before the crash. Where had Norm Lewis been taking this woman? And why hadn't he told his wife about the unscheduled charter flight? As Jensen, the medical examiner and other officials try to identify the woman and track the shooter, Chelle begins to wake from her winterlong paralysis occasioned by her husband's disappearance. But after she discovers clues to his fateful trip, she is stalked by those who want Norm's purpose hidden.
While the thin plot may disappoint some mystery traditionalists, Henry's textured characterization, her attentive depiction of the wilderness area and a brown bear's spring awakening and her indignation at hunting violations will engage most armchair travelers in the lower 48.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Termination Dust by Sue Henry (Hardcover - May 1995)(Mass Market Paperback - May 1, 1996)
From Publishers Weekly
Overplotted and tamer than Henry's award-winning Murder on the Iditarod Trail, this sequel takes its title from the Alaska Gold Rush, when "termination dust" meant the first snowfall of the season, signaling the end of the year's prospecting. Alaska state trooper Alex Jensen is in Canada working with Royal Canadian Mounted Police Inspector Charles "Del" Delafosse when a retired Alaskan senator Warren Russell is found murdered.
Not far off, the police come across Colorado canoeist Jim Hampton, who appears hungover and dazed but denies shooting Russell and insists that he himself was attacked by two others who stole his gear, which has been mysteriously returned, along with a skull and some old bones Hampton had discovered upriver. As Del investigates the murder, Jensen reads the Gold Rush journal Hampton found near the bones. Henry crosscuts the account of the murder investigation with entries from the journal, which is offered in full at the end of the novel. The two plot threads remain tenuously connected, despite the Yukon blizzard that occurs in each.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Murder on the Iditarod Trail by Sue Henry (Hardcover - Mar 1991)(Mass Market Paperback - Jan 1, 2001)
From Publishers Weekly
In this enthralling debut mystery, someone is killing the mushers (dog sled racers) competing in Alaska's internationally famous Iditarod--a 1000-mile race from Anchorage to Nome. The first victim's face is ripped off during a freak accident. Later, state trooper Sgt. Alex Jensen, assigned to the routine investigation of an apparently accidental death, learns that the deceased had been drugged and unconscious moments before his sled crashed. As the two-week run in sub-zero cold continues, the second victim is crushed by a rigged dog sled and the third is eaten alive by doped huskies.
The $250,000 prize money makes Jensen consider all the competing mushers as suspects; however, as more fall prey to mysterious injuries, he realizes that the killer is after more than cash. While the list of suspects dwindles, pitiless Arctic snowstorms immobilize Jensen's search and leave the surviving racers at the mercy of the killer. Henry provides suspense and excitement in this paean to a great sporting event and to the powerful Alaskan landscape.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
cool site
found this while doing a search for an author, and this allows you to find other others you might like as well. Cool site!
http://www.literature-map.com/
http://www.literature-map.com/
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Poem: In Green Old Gardens, Violet Fan
In green old gardens, hidden away
From sight of revel and sound of strife,
Here have I leisure to breathe and move,
And to do my work in a nobler way;
To sing my songs, and to say my say;
To dream my dreams, and to love my love;
To hold my faith, and to live my life,
Making the most of its shadowy day.
IN GREEN OLD GARDENS
Violet Fan (1842-1905)
From sight of revel and sound of strife,
Here have I leisure to breathe and move,
And to do my work in a nobler way;
To sing my songs, and to say my say;
To dream my dreams, and to love my love;
To hold my faith, and to live my life,
Making the most of its shadowy day.
IN GREEN OLD GARDENS
Violet Fan (1842-1905)
joke I got in email: Classmates
Classmates
Many of us are guilty of looking at others our own age and thinking, "Surely, I can't be that old". If you've ever done this, then you'll appreciate the following.
My name is Alice Smith and I was sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment with a new dentist. I noticed his DDS diploma, which bore his full name. Suddenly, I remembered a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name had been in my high school class some 40-odd years ago. Could he be the same guy that I had a secret crush on way back then?
Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought. This balding, grey-haired man with the deeply lined face was way too old to have been my classmate.
After he examined my teeth, I asked him if he had attended Morgan Park High School.
"Yes. Yes, I did. I'm a mustang," he gleamed with pride.
"When did you graduate?" I asked.
"In 1965," he replied. "Why do you ask?"
"You were in my class!" I exclaimed.
He looked at me closely ... and then that ugly, old, bald, wrinkled, fat ass, grey-haired decrepit son-of-a-bitch asked, "What did you teach?"
Many of us are guilty of looking at others our own age and thinking, "Surely, I can't be that old". If you've ever done this, then you'll appreciate the following.
My name is Alice Smith and I was sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment with a new dentist. I noticed his DDS diploma, which bore his full name. Suddenly, I remembered a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name had been in my high school class some 40-odd years ago. Could he be the same guy that I had a secret crush on way back then?
Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought. This balding, grey-haired man with the deeply lined face was way too old to have been my classmate.
After he examined my teeth, I asked him if he had attended Morgan Park High School.
"Yes. Yes, I did. I'm a mustang," he gleamed with pride.
"When did you graduate?" I asked.
"In 1965," he replied. "Why do you ask?"
"You were in my class!" I exclaimed.
He looked at me closely ... and then that ugly, old, bald, wrinkled, fat ass, grey-haired decrepit son-of-a-bitch asked, "What did you teach?"
joke I got in email
Skinny Dippers
An elderly man in North Carolina had owned a large farm for several years. He had a large pond in the back, fixed up really nice, along with some picnic tables, horseshoe courts, and some apple and peach trees. The pond was properly shaped and fixed up for swimming when it was built.
One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the pond, as he hadn't been there for a while, and look it over. He grabbed a five gallon bucket to bring back some fruit. As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee.
When he came closer, he realized it was a bunch of young women skinny-dipping in his pond. He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end to shield themselves.
One of the women shouted to him, "We're not coming out until you leave!"
The old man frowned and replied, "I didn't come down here to watch you ladies swim naked or make you get out of the pond naked." Holding the bucket up he said, "I'm here to feed the alligator."
Moral of the story: Old men may move slow but can still think fast.
______________________________________________
An elderly man in North Carolina had owned a large farm for several years. He had a large pond in the back, fixed up really nice, along with some picnic tables, horseshoe courts, and some apple and peach trees. The pond was properly shaped and fixed up for swimming when it was built.
One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the pond, as he hadn't been there for a while, and look it over. He grabbed a five gallon bucket to bring back some fruit. As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee.
When he came closer, he realized it was a bunch of young women skinny-dipping in his pond. He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end to shield themselves.
One of the women shouted to him, "We're not coming out until you leave!"
The old man frowned and replied, "I didn't come down here to watch you ladies swim naked or make you get out of the pond naked." Holding the bucket up he said, "I'm here to feed the alligator."
Moral of the story: Old men may move slow but can still think fast.
______________________________________________
Shifting the Sun -- Diana Der-Hovanessian [Happy Father's Day]
Shifting the Sun
When your father dies, say the Irish,
you lose your umbrella against bad weather.
May his sun be your light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Welsh,
you sink a foot deeper into the earth.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Canadians,
you run out of excuses.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the French,
you become your own father.
May you stand up in his light, say the Armenians.
When you father dies, say the Indians,
he comes back as the thunder.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Russians,
he takes your childhood with him.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the English,
you join his club you vowed you wouldn't.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Armenians,
your sun shifts forever.
And you walk in his light.
~ Diana Der-Hovanessian ~
Posted by: "GrannyMoon"
yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TurnTheWheel/
When your father dies, say the Irish,
you lose your umbrella against bad weather.
May his sun be your light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Welsh,
you sink a foot deeper into the earth.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Canadians,
you run out of excuses.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the French,
you become your own father.
May you stand up in his light, say the Armenians.
When you father dies, say the Indians,
he comes back as the thunder.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Russians,
he takes your childhood with him.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the English,
you join his club you vowed you wouldn't.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Armenians,
your sun shifts forever.
And you walk in his light.
~ Diana Der-Hovanessian ~
Posted by: "GrannyMoon"
yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TurnTheWheel/
Amazing artist
If you like fantasy art, you will probably love this guy! His art is really amazing.
http://jasonjnorton.blogspot.com/
May not be everybodies cup of tea, but some of his art is just truly inspired. Love his Aslan (he spells it Azlan) and the White Witch, and his Mother Earth! Great work, Jason!
http://jasonjnorton.blogspot.com/
May not be everybodies cup of tea, but some of his art is just truly inspired. Love his Aslan (he spells it Azlan) and the White Witch, and his Mother Earth! Great work, Jason!
Henry, Sue: Cold Company (Jessie Arnold Mystery)
Book cover excerpt: Multiple award-winning author Sue Henry once again carries us into the heart of America's last frontier with a gripping tale of suspense set in a land whose rugged, exquisite beauty appeals to the adventurous and strong...and to those who are drawn to darkness.
The summer solstice is near---bringing long sunlit days to the Alaskan wilderness---and for famed "musher" Jessie Arnold, the time has come to put the past behind her and move on. Building a new home for herself and her sled dogs on the charred ashes of her old one, she plans to be finished well before the onset of the long northern winter. But her progress is halted---chilling Jessie to the bone---when the excavations unearth a skeleton entoumbed in a crumbling basement wall.
Twenty years earlier, a serial killer brutally murdered a number of women in the area. One of the fiend's victims disappeared wearing butterfly pendant---a necklace similar, if not identical, to one discovered with the grisly human remains. A grim nightmare believed to be long over must bow be revisited or, worse still, has been reborn. Because, once again, a local woman has disappeared without a trace.
And, once again, Jessie is being pulled into a murder investigation against her will. Red roses are being sent to her anonymously---the gifts of a secret admirer who may also be a stone-cold killer. In this stark and lonely place, in the first days of the all-too-brief Alaskan summer, the signs suggest the unthinkable: An insatiable human monster has returned...and Jessie Arnold may well be his next victim.
In what is perhaps her most unforgettable novel to date, the incomparable Sue Henry weaves a spellbinding tale of past sins and present-day evils, of humanity at its best and at its worst, and nature at its most powerful.
Note to self and to others, might be a good idea to read a series in order, rather than as you find them, LOL. My what confusion ensues when you've read later ones and try to put the current one you're reading in perspective as to timeline.
I read some of the Jessie Arnold books before, and really enjoyed them...but I think they all came later than this one, and my mind boggles trying to keep that in mind.
The author also makes note at the end of the book that there really was a Robert Hansen that was an evil monster in Alaska a few decades past. He was a big game hunter who then chose to change his game to the female human type...along with rape. There are two books on him, but will let you look it up...don't know if I want to remember that, LOL.
I see Alaska as a near pristine wilderness, where most "unnatural" deaths would be caused by wildlife or unfortunate accidents. Tend to forget the human factor, and that the mentally messed up might see it as an ideal location to practice their deviant behavior.
Still like Jessie with Alex Jensen though...
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